Backdate: East Africa trip Aug 2015 Day 7 - 16th Aug - Start of Safari trip: Flight to Kilimanjaro + Zebra hotel + IndoItaliano restaurant dinner

16/8/15: Here's the start of part 2 of our trip in Tanzania! SS, John, Alex, YJ, ST, Jenny and I were supposed to fly to Kilimanjaro airport for the start of our 6D5N Safari journey in East Africa. Thks to SS's parents, we had lotsa lobster meat for lunch before flying off~ shiok!

Lodi and SS's parents came to ZNZ airport to see us off. We took Precision Air (PW423) that flew to Dar Es Salaam (Julius Nyerere International airport)... half an hr journey. *Lol I rmb-ed I asked for some salt so I can add into my cup of coke, but the African stewardess was stunned by my qns... she couldn't uds why I wanna add salt to coke lol. Anyway, they didn't have salt either, on that small plane.*

Trfed to Precision air PW 436 (1.5hrs flight) which would take us to Kilimanjaro int airport. We were a little surprised there was a charging stn at the departure area... but nth for iPhone 5 onwards LOL. *Bright and sunny weather ahead o!*

In order to distract myself, I did some wordsearch on the plane haha. And just as we were gg to touch down soon, Mount Kilimanjaro (near 6000m) came into sight! *It was very pretty indeed, felt like I was seeing Mt Fuji or Everest LOL.* Waved hello to Kilimanjaro int airport in the late afternoon!

SS found Potete Safari company online, and we booked our 6D5N trip with them. *Costed me USD2300 + tipping of USD40... oh well well, an exp of a path less travelled by many others in life... still worth!* Fyi, Zantel worked pretty well for me throughout the trip I reckon. Anyway, Peace, our driver, was outside the airport waiting for us. *When I saw the safari vehicle, I'm like "Oh man, the trip of my life is surreal, but it's so happening right away!"* 

The funny thing was when we got onto the Safari car and found power sockets and a mini fridge, we were all in awe LOL! *Oh well during some bumpy parts of the journey, the power can get cut off... on and off haha.* And so Peace started the 45mins or 1+hr so of drive to our first stay at Zebra Hotel at Moshi. We saw cattles and cows along the way, the pretty Kilimanjaro and another mountain, a random "Sharon Church", and a few two storeys buildings... maybe richer residents here in Arusha? 

The face of nature over there is abundant, stunningly beautiful and calming. Maybe cos as a city kid, I don't get to see such landscapes often. By the time we reached Zebra Hotel, the sun has alrdy set. This 5-storey hotel seems to be located facing the noisier part of the street compared to other streets, which had few street lamps.

We did our check-ins with the help of Peace. *They were all surprised to hear ST, Jenny and SS speak Swahili haha!* There were no lifts, and YJ and I were given rooms on the 4th flr alamak~ Even though we had lots of lugguages, we insisted we didn't need their staff to help cos it meant tipping. *The boss was rude. He spoke to his staff sth like "they dun want to tip dun need to help them", and ST translated that to us... LOL.* It was a corner room, and YJ didn't hav a gd feeling about it. True enough... the min she turned on the tap, yellowish liquid flushed out, and our overhead fans weren't even working! The rm felt like it had been vacant for a long, long time. Had to call their staff to help with the fans. We also found out that there was no hot water as stated, so we requested for a change of rm.

While YJ and I were talking to Alex nearby his rm, the whole place suddenly blacked out! Turns out there was this African couple in one of the rms, and the guy came out with only a towel wrapped ard him, and explained he'd tripped the power while he was showering. He saw me and started talking, and sorta asked for contact etc, and that was when I quickly "introduced-my-friend-Alex" to him to end my convo and walk away HAHA! *Alex was like O.o~ "u very顺便and smoothly ended your convo with him by dragging me in!?"* 

7 of us walked out in the chilly night, and chanced upon this Indian-Italian cuisine restaurant nearby Zebra hotel, and decided to hav dinner there. *We wanted to save our cup noodles for the last night lol.* Their Indian food was yummy! Be it the tomato sauce, mutton or chicken~ it juz wasn't sth we'd expect to hav in Africa. It costed only 13000TsH per pax plus tipping.

We were so excited and looking forward to the adventure from the nex morning onwards! *We yum-seng out loud, and the table of angmoh nex to us clapped haha!* 

Aft dinner, YJ showered first, before I went in for hot shower. The hot water was gone in 15mins lor! It was alrdy cold at night, so there wasn't the need to turn on the fan at all actually, but we just didn't like this hotel... about the most rundown one I've been to so far.