I had a week to kill before the safari and in all honesty I had been feeling tired for a while so I decided to move to Moshi for 5 nig...

Moshi!

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I had a week to kill before the safari and in all honesty I had been feeling tired for a while so I decided to move to Moshi for 5 nights and relax before the safari. In Arusha I started to feel unwell and in Moshi it all got worst! I got tonsillitis and my toe got infected! I was exhausted and my body getting infections all over maybe was a sign for me to take a break and rest a little bit. So I did.
My first long distance bus in Tanzania was Arusha to Moshi and what I saw left me speechless. I do not understand the world and what's going on at the moment with so much hatred and division but being in that local bus to moshi warmed my heart.
The bus took more than an hour to get full (although I thought it was full long before that!) In a row where 4 people fit, Tanzanians fit 5 adults and 1 or 2 or even 3 kids. No matter how full the bus is people make space for more to have a seat. When parents come in with children strangers who have a full seat to themselves take the children and carry them, happily! 
This is the prime example of a community, where you help your neighbors, a stranger, anybody who comes in contact with you. To me it was very beautiful to see. In so many developed country we fail to even say hello to somebody who seats next to us in the bus or the metro and I bet we would not just grab their child and put in our lap for a 2 hour journey!
Children in the bus were so well behaved! You couldn't even tell there were kids in there unless you actually saw them seating or staring out of the window!


Corn anyone?
Once I got to Moshi I walked to my hostel that was located within a 5 minute walk from the station on the main road. Moshi looked like a contained and cleaner version of Arusha.

There are people sewing in every corner of Moshi!

Yummy food at the hostel!


 During my time in Moshi I walked around town and got harassed a lot by the local men, it really made me hate Tanzania!
I hated walking the streets, it didn't matter what I said, what I didn't say, if I made eye contact or I didn't, if I was wearing earphones or not, everyday I got men following me for blocks and blocks. Even with earphones I could hear them next to me saying "hello, how are you?” and if you engage they literally never leave you alone.

One day I was walking with headphones and a guy came right in front of me and started talking so I had to take my earphones out. I had a quick conversation and I reached my hostel and he left but not his friend, he kept trying to get my number and he even said "you are from America, you are open minded” he insisted on my phone number even after I kept saying “hapana asante” (no, thank you) to all his invitations. I asked him to leave, I told him I wasn't interested in anything, then he asked if I had a boyfriend... as if that is the reason I don't want to talk to him! So annoying! What are we? Something for them to have fun with? That our words that matter? That when we say no it's just a not yet? Maybe they think that if they push more it will become a yes? I am tired of this, it's exhausting, it's annoying, it's infuriating!

Not everything in Moshi was bad, I met amazing people, especially my now friends Liza and Ciara. I did feel like it was a little harder to get in touch with locals, they all see you as the mzungu who comes to their town with a lot of money and they want some of it. Everywhere they want to sell you something or ask you for money but apart from that I loved seeing the people and going into the less tourist filled streets.

 On a sunday I went out to the park and ended up sitting for an hour or so at a bench at the park and just watched people. The park was filled with lovers, they would come and sit at a bench and have a soda and then go, or they would sit on the grass. There were people on the swings,  families passing by... such a nice way to spend a sunday afternoon!


Liza and I went for a walk to the old railway station in hopes to get a glimpse of Mount kilimanjaro but had no luck, While we were there we were able to see people walking along the rails, women carrying many things on their heads and children playing around. 

That looked like no fun at all!

Made it to the old railway station!





From there we headed to my now favorite Moshi spot, Maembe, a nice restaurant with a chance to see kilimanjaro. The restaurant is set in a big garden with a big green grass area and offers cheap and delicious local food, it was the perfect place to sit down, relax, and write.



Beautiful and Serene Maembe!

If you use your imagination you can see Mt Kilimanjaro behind the clouds!

$1 meal at Maembe!


I find the "International school" a funny thing to put on this map with the 2 biggest towns around the area!

One day while looking at the board at my hostel I noticed a sign for a reality tour for $10 and I decided to send them a message and see if they had any tours coming up soon. I ended up walking through many villages to get to the one house that we visited; the organization’s purpose is to help those with HIV and mostly help with the stigma associated with the illness. We visited one family who they all have HIV; the dad recently had a stroke and the social worker who was giving us the tour gave him some massages and “aromatherapy” but it was only a simple rub with a menthol cream.




A local hotel

How a local town looks like

The local vegetable stand!

Got goats?


Main road in town



The landfill just on the side of the road.

The tour wasn’t all that exciting but i liked the walk between the villages and at the end I got to finally see a little glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro!




Now off to a safari!! woohoo!


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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com