Arusha Town; Day 3 of our Awesome African Adventure.

Sunday. A day of rest. The perfect day to visit Arusha itself as all will be calm.

Er… No.

Driving on Arusha's roads is a somewhat novel experience and obviates all need for amusement parks. There may be regulations for road users, it's just that most of them are simply ignored. Deciding on which side of the road to use is mostly random, and you avoid other road users by pure random chance. 

These are the sort of thing found on the roads around here:

Traveling haystacks:

Local buses:

Goods transport:

Traffic lights, which appear not to apply to anything smaller than a truck...

We first drove to a huge art center that we had last visited 10 years ago. Absolutely worth a visit if you happen to pass that way.

Ian's wife, Beatrice, used to work here. She has described to us the huge amounts of profit made by the (non-African) owners and the appalling pay dished out to their employees. Workers unions would revolutionise this country.

The center of town had attracted a massive influx of thousand of catholic marchers, singers, dancers, musiciens, old and young alike. Stunning to see and life-changing to drive through.

Compare this photo of the local catholic church with yesterdays attempt…

We finally gave up totally on traffic regulations and crash landed our truck near the market. A quiet Sunday? See what you think…

After all this madness we sat for a while ruminating bottled water...

...before we headed out into quieter realms to Ian’s family for a great lunch in what seems like the middle of a jungle while the kids plays football.

The ‘roads’ to their house are better described as, well, anything but roads. A four-wheel drive and/or a tendency to insanity are required. 

Our trip back was interrupted by a large truck that had decided to break down on the steepest part of this off-road army course. There was no way around it despite many people standing around talking about it. Instead, we finally headed off in the opposite direction along tracks not meant for human health. When the going got tough, out brave driver (Ian) recruited the help of some aging local massai to chop back the vegetation.

We made it.

Having survived this sedentary day, we readied ourselves for our first animal adventure. Arusha National Park…

Next episode here