"Hey Mister Giveame mymoney"

Hey guys,

So now Dermo and I are traveling across the country, which has been incredibly fun, although doing anything here is incredibly expensive. We are essentially getting screwed by all of the rich european tourists who are willing to lay down huge sums of money for everything and the corrupt Tanzanian government who charge fees upon fees for anything in the parks. So what we have done so far.

We left Kigoma and the rest of the group and took an incredibly painful 4 hour bus ride to the last town before wilderness. If you know Tz at all, it was essentially a huge Dala-dala and the seats were about 8in wide. Dermo had people sitting on his face, punching him in the face, and leaning on him the entire ride, while sit ting on about 4in of seat. fun fun. The cool thing is that Hotels (guesti) cost around 5-10,000tsh a night ($4-8) a room. The next day we hitched a ride in the back of a truck carrying Bananas and pineapples to mpanda, which is 8 hours through the bush. From there we went to Katavi national park. We stayed at this place called the Hippo Garden Hotel, which is aptly named because there were about 50 hippos hanging out in the river 40ft. from our tent. A little exciting because you would walk around at night and have to be on the look out for hippos walking around - and they are incredibly dangerous.

There were two cool european couples there as well, and on day we shared a game drive with an austrian couple and saw amazing animals, including 5 lion cubs and the rest of the pride and a group of 19 giraffes. The next two days we went on Walking Safari, which was wicked cool. Highlights include Catching poachers (I have one of their hats now and our ranger shot at them), seeing hyenas up real close, and camping on the shores of lake Katavi and seeing tons of animals from our tent.

From there we took the train up north to katavi. Basically everything you do in Tanzania, you get owned hardcore. The train was 8 hours late. So we sat in the train station for about 10 hours, but the ride was pretty cool even though there were cockroaches and a rat in one of the compartments. And then we had the exhaust from the aging diesel engine wafting right into our room... Ha fun.

from there we went and climbed Mt. Hanang, the 4th tallest mountain in Tz. It was a gorgeous hike. 11,000 ft stand alone volcano (not active) starting from about 3,000 ft. with an awesome ridge line and incredible views above the clouds. Again though, it was about $50 a person just to be allowed to walk.

We are now in Arusha, and tomorrow we start the main attraction - Mt. Meru. It is a fucking gorgeous mountain just under 15,000 ft. Then to walking from village to village in the jungled Usambara mountains and then a few days in zanzibar.

Times are good, we are always on the move and it is unfortunate that most everyone who you talks to starts off real nice, and then tries to get money from you. Its pretty ridiculous in Arusha. I don't know how many times I have heard, "hello my friend, do you need a safari" in the past 2 hours. Unfortunately Dermno and I have a pretty grim view of the Tanzanian people because of all the people who try to screw us constantly. Fortunately people don't seem to understand words like, Douchebag, asshole, shithead, etc. So we spend a lot of time talking shit about people in their faces in pleasant (or not so pleasant) tones of voice. A habit I am definitely going to have to break before life in america again. We got off the bus here and about 20 people immediately surround us when we were trying to get our bags - pushing and shoving us and I almost punched a guy who repeatedly tried to pick my pockets (he was incredibly horrible at it)

that being said, once in a long time you meet a tanzanian who is legitimately cool and we have had many really fun conversations with people in swahili. Everyone else really brings down the experience a lot. and the fact that we are dropping $100 or more for all of the cool things that we are doing.

word gotta go. Can't wait to see you guys again (and america for that matter)