Ngorongoro Crater and Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

See that map on the right? I’m not proud of that. With the end of my trip coming on the horizon, I’ve had to start picking and choosing where I want to go rather than just meandering around. Unfortunately, it means that I’m giving Tanzania the short shrift, and so I made my way across the entire north of the country in a mere six days — three of which I spent on long-distance buses, and the remaining three of which I also spent a lot of time in transport.

Tanzania does have a lot to offer, but a lot of it is similar to what I’ve seen and experienced already. There’s Lake Victoria, which I saw briefly in Uganda and decided to skip over this time. There’s the Usambara Mountains, which I saw on my bus ride from Moshi to Dar — pretty, but I’ve been seeing plenty of hillside villages in Rwanda. There’s the Seregenti, which is contiguous with Maasai Mara NP in Kenya. And there’s also Mt. Kilimanjaro, which I had no interest in climbing due to cost (over $1100!) and time, but I did make an extra stop just to see it.

Still…if I had more time, I would definitely have stopped along the way, maybe experience a bit more of local life. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to locals like I have in my past five countries. I blame it on having to rush so much, but I also wonder: people in Tanzania are super welcoming, but not particularly chatty. I’ve had plenty of friendly people greet or assist me on the street, but none seem to linger or continue to chat, even on those 12-hour long bus rides. Also probably a big reason: many speak only Swahili and little to no English. They do seem to be truly happy to see visitors though, and they’re proud of their country.
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