Day 6: Arusha

We got up reasonably early today because Tim had a session of the Esperanto Academy which he needed to attend at 9am. I went to a lecture about Croatian UNESCO sites which was running at the same time; slightly surreal to be sitting in Africa and looking at photos of Croatia, but everyone who attended got a little gift from the Croatian tourist board, so that was nice

Tim and I reconvened after our respective sessions. We were planning to walk into town to change some of the USD we've brought with us into Tanzanian shillings, but it turned out that there was a bureau de change outside the conference centre today, so we were able to change some money there instead.

I waited in the courtyard of the conference centre while Tim went into the mobile bank to sort out the money. It seemed to be taking a while! When he emerged he explained that he'd had to show his passport and the lady had incorrectly written down his nationality as "Ireland", being confused by the part of the passport which said "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". So they'd had to start the paperwork over again  

We walked back towards the hotel, passing this amazing roundabout on the way.

We popped into a small shop to stock up on bottled water, then went back to the hotel room for a while so Tim could work on his presentations for the rest of the week. I had a nice time sitting on the balcony and reading.

I needed to be back at the conference centre by 1pm, ready for an excursion to the African Cultural Heritage Centre. 14 Esperantists piled into a small bus and were driven across the town, which was an experience in itself. Buses of school children pointed and waved at us and we passed several local women carrying huge loads on their heads.

We were deposited outside the centre and informed that the bus would be back to pick us up in 3 hours, which sounded like a long time. I hoped there was going to be a lot to see!

First of all we walked through what was essentially a giant souvenir shop.

There were some quite unusual souvenirs here though!

There were lots of African masks, some of which were really quite scary...

...although there were some cuter pieces of art too.

I particularly liked these meerkat statues

The building itself was quite impressive too, with a beautiful glass roof.

I was a bit concerned about how I was going to fill three hours here, but luckily it turned out that there was more to see beyond the souvenir shop.

When I emerged from the shop I found myself in an outdoor area with lots of sculptures of different African animals.

There were also some more slightly terrifying masks!

But the animal sculptures were really cool. There were elephants...

...a giant rhino...

...zebras...

...and flamingoes.

There were also some statues of different tribespeople.

I made my way around the statues towards the art gallery, which houses one of the biggest collections of African art in the world.

There were lots more animal sculptures around the front of here too.

The crocodile by the river was quite life-like!

Leaving the animals behind, I went inside the gallery.

It was a really impressive building, with exhibits over multiple floors.

There were plenty of animal sculptures in here too...

...but also lots of other artefacts.

There were walls of masks...

...and some rather scary statues...

.I also found an interesting display of artefacts from Coptic Christians in Ethiopia.

Once I'd exhausted the art gallery it was back outside to wait for the return bus to the conference centre.

After the excursion I went back to the hotel to reunite with Tim, then we headed out for an evening meal at the same place we ate yesterday. I had a narrow escape when I was initially given a banana muffin instead of a lemon muffin, but luckily that was rectified before I started eating it!

On the way back to the hotel we walked past the Arusha clocktower, which we've now learned is supposed to mark the spot exactly halfway between Cape Town in South Africa and Cairo in Egypt.

Then it was time to do the blog and prepare for an early night, because I'm off on my next excursion first thing tomorrow morning!