Day 36, 2011/06/06 Arusha

Day 36, 2011/06/06 Arusha

Day 36, 2011/06/06

Feeling better but still not out of the woods, so I keep taking the Malaria pills. I have been told that they are very strong however, I do not experience any untoward affects at all. David's wife Heather arrives today,she will be joining us safari from tomorrow. She is also bringing my bikes spares, which will restore a certain level of comfort back into my state of mind. 
While David is off to the airport, I am going to see ifi can fix my hooter AGAIN! 
Yeah, it stopped working coming into Arusha, and it is an essential tool in this traffic,to keep yourself alive.
Soon discover I need a new hooter. The old one has been fiddled with a little too much. So off to town,into the peak Monday madness. And what madness it is! People just do what they want on the road. And I soon have to swallow that western way of driving and adopt the central African way. Surprisingly, with all the bad driving everything works and flows and, in addition, I find the people far more courteous than Johannesburg. Not that that is perhaps a good yardstick to use a baseline! 
You would think that a simple car hooter/horn would be simple to find in a bustling place like Arusha. Well no not really. Eventually find a place will sell me a pair for R140. No, he will not split the box it comes in. After purchasing the pair, i discover that,it is not the horn that is not working but in fact the hooter button that is on the blink. But that will have to wait, because first I am meeting up with David and Heather, and we are off to the safari company to make payment. Heather looks pleased to been able to join us, and she is looking forward to the safari. In addition, she has brought my spares with which David's son Warren managed to get for me. What a relief to have the spares finally. No more  need to stress!
Ihave never had to pay a million something or other in my life before, and handing over a million Shillings was an experience!just the counting it out took forever! 
Once done, David,Heather and I head for a lovely new coffee shop we spotted and enjoy the most upmarket meal i must have had since leaving Johannesburg.
Then it is off to source a soldering iron and extension cords to see if can fix that darn hooter! 
It was actually not difficult to source a cheap soldering iron, with solder and extension cord. And boy you get what you pay for! The solder was some Taiwan cheap shit! It would melt once and once only! The second time you tried to melt it,it would turn into this thick crystalline paste, which was of no use! So what should have taken me no more than 10 minutes, took me me an hour and a half. And by that stage, it w starting to get dark. So just enough time for a dinner and a good lovely shower, then bed!