Safari gateway city in Kilimanjaro's shadow
Arusha sits at the foot of Mount Meru and serves as the launch point for the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Kilimanjaro climb — but it rewards a day or two of its own with a superb Maasai and Chagga market, a lively Indian Ocean-influenced food scene of pilau rice and nyama choma grilled beef, and a clock tower that marks the precise midpoint of the Cairo-Cape Town road, 6,228km in each direction.
Arusha was established as a German colonial boma (fort) in 1900, strategically positioned where the highland Arusha tribe and the plains Maasai had traded for centuries. The town later became synonymous with international justice — the Arusha Accords attempted to end the Rwandan genocide in 1993, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda held its proceedings here from 1995 to 2015.