Arusha"Whats the go with geriatrics and safari outfits"?Whenever anyone over the age of 40 goes on safari they feel the need to deck themselves out if khaki. Arusha is covered in these people, their cargo pants, beige vests and ridiculous looking hats. They follow their tour leaders around town, decked out in uniform, perhaps expecting to spot a leopard on the main street. Even when on safari, its not like they are out tracking the beasts and need to blend into their surrounds, they are sitting in 3 tonne vehicle with its engine running all day. They're no doubt the same people who are compelled to don Hawaiian shirts when they spot a palm tree, I just don't get it. It would be like me getting round town in a wetsuit just coz I happen to be on the coast - prepared just in case there is a sudden need to go diving.Arriving back in Arusha, Kaz and I headed back to old town partly because our budgets dictated so, but partly because we liked it. The old centre was full of hustle and bustle, people going about their daily chores without so much of the tourist influence. We had given ourselves a few days to regroup, run some errands and book ourselves a Kilimanjaro climb. We had been tossing up the idea of a climbing Kili since before we even left for Africa. Whether it be the Eiffel tower of Paris, the Spanish steps in Rome or some volcano in South America, I'm of the opinion that if something is there to be climbed, it should be. We had hesitated for quite a while given our extended period of travel and the immense costs associated with the cl;imb, but in the end, our outlay for 1 hour with the gorillas put the whole thing into perspective, and we figured we may never get the opportunity again. People had suggested we opt for the much cheaper Mt Kenya or maybe even Mt Meru, but if you're going to do something like this then you may aswell do it properly. Besides, who wants to say they conquered the SECOND highest mountain in Africa.Our priority was to visit the individual trekking companies in Arusha, similar to what we had planned with the Safari, and if we had no luck we would move on to Moshi to do the same. Kaz and I had generated a list of reputable operators and we wandered the streets visiting each one individually. This should have been a fairly straight forward process but instead we spent half the day fighting off the annoying and overly persistent touts, referred to as flycatchers in these parts. Irritating young males who follow you round the streets insisting you accept their advice to visit the so called "best" agents, but in reality just the ones that offer the highest commission. These nuisances are frustratingly annoying and will not take "No" for an answer and on this particular day Karen and I managed to gather our own entourage who followed us round all day. Throughout Africa we have been regularly hounded by touts, mostly so in Malawi, and there are stages when we just couldn't be bothered leaving our accommodation because of dealing with them. Tanzania has an unsurpassed reputation as being the worst for flycatchers that was until this day unfounded. I had had a confrontation with one earlier in the day when he accused me of lying to him, but it wasn't until the afternoon when we finally managed to shake them loose. "Look, will you just leave us alone, we do not need your help and are not going to buy anything from you or your companies" Karen barked. I think they got a bit of a shock by her reaction but it had been coming for a while. They stopped dead in their tracks as we continued on, "your boyfriend is nice but you are very rude and mean" they shouted, I joked with Kaz that I tended to agree with them. Our research and all the hassle from the touts only confirmed our original thoughts, and having been offered a good price we again settled for Shidolya. They had delivered on the safari and we figured better the devil you know……that said we had an interesting time paying when they didn't know how to operate the credit card machine they had dragged us down to the local bank to use. Watching them work was like watching 2 monkeys try and open a coconut - but painfully slower. In the lead up to the climb, Karen and I took it easy. We wandered the town in preparation, dodging the flycatchers and shaking our heads at the fat Americans in their safari gear. We walked past some locals trying to jam a couple of goats in the 4inch gap behind the back seats of a minibus, but that's about as interesting as it got.At night we sampled the local fare, most memorable Khans street barbecue. By day a mechanics workshop, by night an aromatic orgy of tandoori bbq'd meat, Arabic spices and diesel. Khans is an institution in Arusha, and despite its hesitantly industrial setting is a must for dinner.Arusha is coincidentally home to the Rwanda war crimes tribunal, created to try the masterminds of the genocide in 1994. Following our visit to Rwanda, and our increased interest in the topic, we decided to sit in on the tribunal for an afternoon. We were ushered into a small glass room adjacent to the courtroom and given headphones to follow the proceedings. When we arrived a protected witness was being cross examined and hence curtains were drawn to protect his identity, but as the events unfolded a further witness was called and the curtains were removed. It was extremely interesting, watching the lawyers and judges at work, just like a TV courtroom drama "do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth…………." There were some obvious hurdles to overcome, problems relating to translation in several different languages (English, French and local dialects of Rwanda), and confusion over definitions. At one point a mild argument broke out between the 3 judges (1 Muslim, and two African) over whether Easter was in fact Easter Sunday or the period from Good Friday through to Easter Monday. It ended with the Muslim judge commenting "It doesn't really matter, you all should just be happy I've given you the time off this year". The proceedings for the afternoon rolled up, but of course in the short time we were there nothing was resolved. It was extremely interesting to watch, but frustrating as well, trying to speculate what had happened previously and where questioning was leading, like reading 1 chapter in the middle of a book. If we had the time, we may have sat there for a week, but unfortunately we had a mountain to climb.