Baraka and Tosh had rented a mini bus to get us all to the mountain. The bus was not like the kind of buses you see in America, but judging from the number of similar vehicles we saw on the road, they are pretty common in Tanzania. The bus was small and cramped, even though we didn't even fill the bus. There was almost no legroom between seats, and the seats themselves were barely padded. I can't imagine how uncomfortable the bus would have been if it was full.
The ride too and from Arusha was pretty eventful. We were pulled over twice by the police. Apparently there was some small issue with the car that needed to be fix, though I'm not sure exactly what it was. At any rate, whatever needed to be fixed didn't impede the buses driving at all, but twice we were pulled over and twice the drives had to bribe the police to be let go. It was really interesting see the corruption with the police first hand, since we had just talked about in class last week.
When we got there we went on several different outings. The first thing we did was go to see another waterfall. This waterfall was even more beautiful than the last. This one was smaller, but more powerful and much more private. We were the only ones there at the time and it was just a really relaxing atmosphere. The next thing we did was go to the Chagga Museum. The Chagga are a tribe that lived around Kilimanjaro. One of the things they did was build tunnels which they used to protect themselves from neighboring tribes. We got to go into one of those tunnels which was really neat. The tunnels were pitch black and you couldn't stand up in them at all. It was a really cool experience, though, despite the fact it was a little scary. Finally we went to the start of one of the major trails up Kilimanjaro. We walked around the bottom for a little while and just checked out the mountain, it was still overcast though so we couldn't see all that much. All and all It was a very fun day.
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