I am Zidane

According to the average Tanzanian I am Zinedine Zidane. I've had people shout it at me from a speeding dalla-dalla, people say it to me on the street and in shops. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with my football skills or my ability to head butt Italians. . . It is purely down to our shared lack of hair!

Not rushing back to Arusha

After just having got used to the luxury of posh safari accommodation we waved goodbye to to animals and headed back from the Serengeti to Arusha.

The last time we stayed here, 4 days ago, we were in the Impala Hotel as part of our safari deal. This time we're having to stay in somewhere that is more to our usual standards and now Arusha doesn't quite seem as nice!

The Impala was located in the nice leafy Eastern part of town. This time we are staying at the Arusha Centre Inn which is smack bang in the middle of the dusty town centre.

The room isn't too bad but still feels vastly overpriced compared to Asia. At least it's clean and we have hot water and the novelty of a TV. Although we've never before stayed in a hotel room where the TV is locked into a welded steel cage in the corner. Surely guests stealing TVs can't be that much of a problem and I'm sure that reception would notice you on the way out.

We're staying in Arusha for just 2 nights. After all of the early starts, long days and big distances that we've covered over the last few days we needed a day or two to recharge the batteries before the 9 hour bus journey to Dar es Salaam.

Jambo Tanzania

Before we could start our safari proper we had to make the marathon 8 hour drive to Arusha in Tanzania. We had a very early start on Friday morning as we had to be ready for our pick up from Kenyan Adventures at 6am. The actual journey ended up taking 10 hours thanks to the additional 2 hours it took to negotiate the boarder crossing between Kenya and Tanzania. For some inexplicable reason land boarders are always more of a palaver than when you fly in.

For large parts of the journey the roads were really rough and made of pot holed loose gravel rather than tarmac. Giving us what the locals laughingly refer to as the African massage.

Once we crossed into Tanzania the road skirted around the base of Mt Kilimanjaro. We were able to catch the occasional glimpse of it's snow covered peak through the clouds over 5km above our heads. I would love to have a crack at the summit but the costs are just too high, the average 5 day trek costs about $2000!

The journey also gave us the opportunity to see police corruption at close hand when our driver got shook down by the Tanzanian fuzz for a bribe. Thankfully the policeman was happy with a brand new crisp 100 Kenyan shilling note (about 80p).

The hotel we stayed at in Arusha, Impala Hotel, gave us a great view of Mt Meru and an over-full stomach from their excellent Indian restaurant.