During our stay at The Retreat at Ngorongoro we took an accounting of our money. With paying for gas out of the way at this point there aren’t really a lot of places where we think that we will have to spend Tanzanian Shillings. And we still have a lot left. So we decide to stop on our way to Arusha at a couple stops where maybe we can buy some souvenirs to remind us of the great time in Tanzania. First intentional stop is Marera Village Gallery after being first stopped by a policeman who had a speed trap set up. We were going speed limit but that didn’t stop him to stop us just to ask us how we enjoy Tanzania. Guess what the answer is when a policeman in Tanzania on a rural road is asking you no matter how much you enjoyed or hated it?
The gallery is much more expansive as we expected continuing on and on across multiple buildings. We also get a minder who tries to direct us to specific items and to buy as much as possible, in this case she is successful given that we in fact do want to buy lots of stuff.
What we don’t buy are paintings, they are more difficult to transport safely and also we do not find anything that really jumps out at us.
Anyways there are more than enough objects to buy, all of them without prices and clearly made for tourists but still fun to have in our opinion.
As our minders basket is filling up we decide that enough is enough and now start negotiating. Well it is not as much negotiating as us saying we only have this much money so we don’t want this. And then the minder reduces the price and the song and dance continues. What she doesn’t know is that we really do not have money :), ultimately the requested amount goes down by about 30% to something that seems more reasonable. And also they promise to add a hanging hook for one of the objects that we want to hang at home.
While waiting we explore a few other sections that we missed including one with dusty statues of colonial people, those do not appear to be in high demand. And then we use the facilities and on we go to the next stop which is close by, the Tanzanite Experience.
