From Arusha to Mwanza

Fancy spending an eleven hour drive through land adjacent to the Serengeti National Park? I know i do.

It might not be the quickest journey from Arusha to Mwanza; it's quicker to travel via Nairobi in Kenya than travel through Tanzania.

Nonetheless

1) i don't want to pay for a transit Kenyan visa
2) nor have to double back (i am due to hit Kenya's crime-filled capital next month) to try to obtain onward visas both for Sudan (i've been warned this can take a month!)and Ethiopia (where i have been told there has been new curbs on both UK and German visitors).
3) i want a cheap safari through the Serengeti

I book a window seat ticket with Bedui Luxury Coaches for Tsh35,000 for what is reputed to be an eleven hour haul. How luxurious or time efficient it is remains to be seen.

Aub's Addition Okay - it did sound to good to be true. The journey normally takes 13 hours but we have a breakdown for almost three hours, and having left the hotel at 5.30am we arrive into Mwaza at 11pm - never the safest or conveniant time to arrive into a new city. As for seeing the Serengeti, this is also a myth. About 5 hours of the journey passes on farming and pastoral land adjacent to the Serengeti. All i see are cows and goats as our driver going heavy-footed on the accellerator on an unsealed track.

After cussing my misfortune of sitting to one of the very few obese locals i have seen on my journey, he takes me under his wing. Jonathon kindly negotiates a taxi for over 20 minutes whilst he waits patiently for my bag to be unloaded. He then finds me a cheap hotel in the town centre, refuses to accept money for the taxi, and then invites me to lunch the following day.