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Mto Wa Mbu

Mto Wa Mbu - Tanzania Overland Travel Mto Wa Mbu - Tanzania Overland Travel
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Mto Wa Mbu, pronounced umto wambu, means mosquito creek. It is a very small town of only a few thousand people and a stinking hot dust bowl full of the aforementioned mosquitoes.

But it’s worth a mention because it’s halfway between Arusha and the Ngorongoro Crater and close to the entrance gate to the Lake Manyara National Park. Anyone going on a safari to these parks will pass through it. It’s a mandatory stop for all safari operators to buy a not-so-cold coke to wash down the dust in their throats, and to visit the curio market selling carvings and Masai spears to the increasing number of tourists.

You’ll be swarmed by curio sellers as soon as you get out of the vehicle. Learn the Swahili phrase 'sina pesa': I have no money. Bear in mind that prices here are double what they are in Arusha and check that wooden carvings are genuine ebony. Black boot polish on inferior wood is a speciality here.

Mto Wa Mbu is also the secret location for two very unusual food items - the Cadbury’s Chocolate Bar and the Red Banana. The Cadbury’s Chocolate Bar is a rare item indeed in East Africa, but just ask at any of Mto Wa Mbu’s small stalls and for a few shillings they will magically appear. Just check how old they are first. Red bananas taste the same as regular bananas but their skins are a startling bright red. There’s even the Red Banana Café located in the centre of town.

On the surrounding plains you’ll see many Maasai families in their traditional bomas, and the tall, elegant, proud Maasai herdsmen draped in red cloths and hung with strings of beads and intricate earrings. If you’re lucky you might see one of the Maasai cattle markets that occur occasionally on the plains outside of town. This is a rare spectacle when thousands of colourful Maasai with their skinny cows gather to trade.

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