Arusha City Tanzania

 Day 12 – September 15: Arusha City 

Having stayed a night near Ngorongoro crater, it was time to start to our final destination city in the East African Tour.

What a scenic and fantastic drive it was through well laid out roads ( for once).

On the way did some shopping of Tanzanite ear rings. 'Tanzanite' is the blue and violet variety of the mineral zoisite, caused by small amounts of vanadium. Tanzanite belongs to the epidote mineral group. Tanzanite is only found in Simanjiro District of Manyara Region in Tanzania, in a very small mining area approximately 7 km long and 2 km wide near the Mererani Hills.

We passed through the Lake Manyara.  It is a shallow, alkaline lake in the Natron-Manyara-Balangida branch of the East African Rift.   The northwest quadrant of the lake (about 200 sq, km.)  is included within Lake Manyara National Park and it is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, established in 1981 by UNESCO as part of its Man and the Biosphere Programme.

Our van driver came guide also pointed out the Baboob tree which means  'upside down trees'. It has this name because of its peculiar shape – when it's bare of leaves, its spreading, twisted branches look like roots spreading out into the air as if the tree had been planted upside down  Baobab trees can grow to enormous sizes and carbon dating indicates that they may live to be 3,000 years old. One ancient hollow Baobab tree in Zimbabwe is so large that up to 40 people can shelter inside its trunk.

Finally reached Arusha City and of course we were housed in a hotel which is on the outskirts of the city.

In the evening went for a Rotary meeting organized by more than 10+ clubs in the region and so had the chance to drive through the city

we were honored to witness the maasai tribal dance by rotarians who belong to the tribe

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Was surprised to hear that All the shops close by 5 00pm and the local markets close by 6.00pm.

As usual some info courtesy Wikipedia 

Arusha City is a Tanzanian city, with a population of 617,631, and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 2,356,255 (2022 census)

Located below Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley, Arusha City has a temperate climate. The city is close to the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Lake Manyara National Park, Olduvai Gorge, Tarangire National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Mount Meru in the Arusha National Park.

The city is a major international diplomatic hub. It hosts the African Court of the African Union and is the capital of the East African Community. From 1994 to 2015, the city also hosted the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, but that entity has ceased operations. Currently, it hosts one of the headquarters of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

Arusha is a multicultural city with a majority Tanzanian population of mixed backgrounds: indigenous African, Arab-Tanzanian and Indian-Tanzanian population, plus a small European and North American minority population. Religions of the Arusha city population include Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism.