A good number of poachers also seem to ply their trade along the edges of the national park, which is amorphously delineated in most locations. The cultivated areas quickly turn into forest and jungle as you make your way into the national park, with muddy, slippery trails, monkeys and birds in abundance. Further up there is a tundra-like desert where only the hardiest of lichens and mosses survive. I saw almost no life up here, the slopes consist of either bare rock, snow or scree, and up in the crater there is a fine, powdery ash, sometimes snow covered, with sporadic rocks and large, looming glaciers that look almost surreal. From what we could see, its game parks and mountains are its principal resources.
Manufacturing is non-existent and the farms are small.
Although safaris in the Serengeti and other locations in Kenya are by far a bigger drawing card for tourists, I think this results not from any lack of abundance of wildlife in the Tanzanian game parks, but rather from the decrepit infrastructure in Tanzania. In fact, the terrible road conditions in Tanzania are one of a climber's principal challenges. Trying to obtain coffee for breakfast sometimes took multiple repeatings in both Swahili and English. But when taken with good nature, as part of the experience, all of these things are easily sloughed off. As a measure of our good fortune, it was always good to compare our situation to the average person on the street, to whom life in a hotel must be an oasis of riches beyond imagination.