We left Dar es Salaam after visiting Shoprite to stock up our provisions and filling the petrol tanks. Because of the chaotic traffic and waiting nearly 2 hours for the ferry, we only got away at 13:00. We drove to Bagamoyo and found a campsite at the Bagamoyo Lodge. We shared the campsite with a group of Belgian kids. They were very easygoing except that 4 of them played some sort of game right through the night (next to our tent) which they found hilariously the later it became and the more beer they drank, keeping us awake
Bagamoyo is rich in history and we drove sort of by accident on our way to the campsite (T4A navigating us there) through an area that looks similar to Stone Town in Zanzibar, where the Arabs stayed in Bagamoyo way back in the slave trading era.
Camped for $7 p.p
Early the next morning we drove to Peponi Beach Camp near Pangani, which was by hind site an unnecessary detour of about 140km not worth the while. If one is on on route to Mombasa it is maybe worth the 27km very bad gravel road to the campsite. In the village where we turned of towards Peponi, the villagers put in their own type of speed bumps. Huge logs that they plaster with mud that makes it invisible. We hit such a bump at about 50kmph and the poor Hilux made a high jump. To make a long story short….luckily nothing broke but the left airbags shifted precariously. We stayed there only to do our washing which by now were becoming a problem.
Peponi Beach Camp $5pp per night
We thought to camp at The Elephant Motel at Same but because we left so early at Peponi, it was round about 12:00 when we drove through Same. We decided to try to reach Moshi. We are soooo glad that we drove through because after pitching our tent at the Keys Hotel’s campsite, we went across the street to the hotel to look at Kilimanjaro. The Camp Manager told us that one can see Kili from the hotel. We climbed the steps to the upper floor and viola…there Kilimanjaro was without clouds. Sadly not much snow to be seen on the top. We could not believe how lucky we were! It was about 18:00 and a bit misty but we tried to take a few photo’s of the mountain.
We also witnessed a wedding party that passed the street between the camping area and the hotel. They had their own jolly band accompanying them.
The happy couple
The next morning we drove to Arusha and camped at Sakina Campsite in the outskirts of Arusha on the main road to Nairobi. We had a beautiful view of Mt Meru from our tent. Sakina is more a guesthouse for people doing the Kilimanjaro or Meru climb so we met Japanese, Americans, Germans and a Hollander that were either going or just done Kili or Meru. They could not believe what we were doing and were very impressed with how we were equipped. Our Hilux is now world famous because they took photo’s of it from every angle
We really enjoyed Arusha. We drove to the city centre to see the clock tower that is supposedly exactly halfway between Cape Town and Cairo. We drove to Karama Lodge twice to try to see Kilimanjaro again and luckily the afternoon before we left for Nairobi, after waiting an hour, the clouds lifted slowly and we could see the mountain top appearing through the clouds and being highlighted a light pink in the sunset. A very precious moment because it lasted about 10 minutes and the mountain was gone again.
Evidence
Halfway!
Arno also fixed the airbags
Camped at $7p.p. We can really recommend Sakina Campsite
Kilometers of nurseries next to the streets
Arusha’s tree lined streets
