It started Saturday with an attempt at a long run in the heat of the day. Nice views of Kili in the background, as the wife and I ran through a school, cornfields and up into steady gradient behind the town.
Then the heat got too much for me, I gave up, wife kept racing on, wife ran back, I didn't want to run no more, 'you know I can't run as fast as you' etc etc After a lot of debating and whining (on my part), we settled on a slow jog back to find a contingent of Kiwi volunteers we had hung with at language school in Arusha were coming to Moshi for to 'do the town'. We met up with them as well as another old friend from language school and headed out into the big smoke.
We started at an Indo-Italian restaurant for pizza as well as the rum one of us surreptitiously smuggled in (and got busted, so thus had to pay corkage). Suitably...happy...we left the restaurant, fended off a guy demanding money from us for speaking Swahili and tried to find a place with a pool table. Raced away from one place when they tried to place a monster tourist-sized cover charge on us and settled on the 'Cool Bar'. Inside a mix of locals and tourists gyrated to awful bass music, as me and another kiwi challenged locals at pool. I got absolutely destroyed at pool but it was still fun. I threw in a couple of trick shots. From that dive I finally got to go to a place I have been meaning to go to since I first came to Moshi: 'Club La Liga' a multi storied night club with searchlights outside (I tried to make one into a bat signal but its harder in real life), packed with locals and tourists in a smokey, neon wonderland. The wife and I quickly found a raised stage and pulled out some classic break dancing moves (I hope those photos are never shownn) We bumped into a gaggle of volunteers from Sydney, Australia that we had fun mocking eachother back and forth. Loved the taxi ride back at 3am with the taxi driver seemingly having a stocked liquor cabinet in his cab...only in Africa.
Next day, despite pounding heads we decided to take a 50 minute bus ride to Marungu to see the scenery and waterfalls out that way. Marungu is in Kilimanjaro National Park and is the start of one of the routes up the Mountain. It is a far distance above sea level, so nice and cool. Very forest-y so a nice contrast from the usual vegetation around Moshi. Marungu is a place a lot of tourists go, so we picked up a gaggle of children asking for sweets and a couple of locals insisting on guiding us to a waterfall. Despite us repeatedly saying we did not want a guide, that we were not going to pay a cent, they insisted it was 'no problem' and that they wanted to come along.
After a winding trudge up and down and round and round (I think those 2 locals were trying to justify why they were 'needed')we got to the waterfall. It was a decent size and the whole scene was pretty idyllic. It was nice to go for a swim-in nice safe, mountain fed water-and see rainbows forming from the mist and spray all about you. A great time just being silly with some mates. It started to get cooler so we started back, arguing with the now surly 2 locals now demanding to be paid money 'or else'. I had been ready to slip them some cash, till they started making ridiculous threats of violence...a bit of a sour note.
A cramped but pleasant bus ride back with a lot of celebrating young Americans (ie its the 4th of July) and the Kiwis said our goodbyes at the Moshi bus terminal. As always its great to hang with the other volunteers (even if they are South Islanders) and I'll miss them. Until our next adventure.
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