Morocco is rich in movie history and the center of that history is Ouarzazate. So naturally there is a museum called Musee du Cinema because that’s apparently the way you say movie museum in French. And just like all other museums, this one has a cafe nearby for hungry travelers.

After glancing at the menu, I decided to get the Kefta Kebab and Fries. Unlike other kefta, this didn’t come in some sort of a tajine, but really was cooked like a kebab and then dropped on the plate. In fact, it’s hard to even call it a meatball because they came out rolled like logs. In addition to the fries, it came with some rice, a couple of olives and some tomato slices. I ignored those last two and concentrated on the real food.

The kefta was pretty good, but a bit on the dry side. The fries were also a bit disappointing, but at least the rice was rice. So, basically it was exactly what you would expect from a cafe next to museum. Not the worst meal, but nothing special in any way.

While “riad” may be a common word for “hotel” in Morocco, due to the French influence in the country, “auberge” comes up pretty often as well. So when we stayed right next to the Sahara in Merzouga our hotel was called Auberge Les Roches. Auberge Le Sable would probably have been a more appropriate name, but whatevsies. As with a couple other stops, our hotel was also our restaurant for the night and that could only mean one thing: tajine.

The tajine served at Auberge Les Roches was a variation of one I’d seen many times before, but never ordered by me. That’s because it was filled with about 7 or so different vegetables. Fortunately, buried beneath those that would ruin my meal was a bunch of chicken. And the chicken was fine, but it was really probably the least delicious of any I had eaten yet. It probably has something to do with a lack of awesome citrus flavors, but whatever the reason I will recommend Auberge Les Roches for the rooms and the view much more than the food.

On the way to the Sahara Desert, we stopped at a place called Restaurant Inass in Tinghir. Despite the name of the place, I assumed the was served in the mouth as opposed to…well…the name of the place. The restaurant had a deep back outdoor area and we found ourselves a seat. And before our meal came out, we were brought a nice little dish of noodles with nuts, cinnamon and sugar. But that’s not all.

We were also brought out some crushed lentil soup that was equally unexpected. Both of these were good and the lentil soup was even better when I added a bit of harissa to the stuff. As for my meal, despite the fact that Restaurant Inass had some Italian on the menu, I stuck with Moroccan for my meal. I ordered the Tajine with chicken, lemon and olives, because sometimes you just can’t get enough tajine.

The meal turned out to be pretty good and fortunately I was expected to eat it in the traditional way. Again, the chicken wasn’t as tender as I had had before and didn’t have quite as much flavor as the sauce itself, but it was certainly nothing to complain about. Well, especially considering how my dad reacted to the Italian food he ordered (hint: not a good reaction, but then my dad has an interesting taste in food).

It was a good stop considering the long road ahead of us to the Sahara. But if they could change their name I’m guessing they could do a whole lot better.

What’s chwarma? Some might say it’s simply how you spell schwarma in Morocco. At least that’s what I thought when we stopped at Cafe Restaurant L’Etoile in the Djemaa Al Fnaa (Big Square) of Marrakesh’s Medina. We kind of stopped there on a whim considering every other place we had been to was a success so far, and I proceeded to order a Chwarma Sandwich with a side of frites.

While unvegan travel rules stipulate that I can order my food with veggies, I still try to avoid any uncooked veggies for fear of beaver fever, so I ordered my chwarma without. This was a fail, so I sent it back and asked for it without salad this time and it worked. Unfortunately, while chwarma does appear to be how schwarma is spelled in Morocco, the version L’Etoile pumped out was more of a dry, flavorless compression of shaved chicken.

It was certainly disappointing, but perhaps a good example of the bad touristy food I had been warned against in the Big Square. Luckily I had already eaten some good food in the square and knew it wasn’t all like L’Etoile.

Sometimes you travel somewhere and despite every fiber of your being, you realize you simply have to be a tourist. And I don’t mean going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was built, and people came. No, I’m talking about places that exist for the sole purpose of attracting tourists. In Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, one of these places is the Boma.

Had the dinner at Boma not been included in our hotel stay at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, odds are we wouldn’t have made it, which would have been too bad. Honestly. Despite it being an obvious tourist draw, eating there was a delight. After all, how many opportunities do you get to eat a freshly grilled lamb or BBQ ostrich? And let’s not forget the Mopani Worms and Warthog!

Plus, the meal includes some pretty awesome dancing and drumming. Not just entertainment though, every diner is given their own drum to bang for the duration of the evening and a “traditional” Zimbabwean gown. I’m still not sure how much of any of it is actually traditional, but it is certainly great fun.

The food, by the way, is nothing amazing, but it gets the job done. After all, the Boma is not simply about food, it’s about an experience and it’s an enjoyable one at that.

Although they border each other and both speak English, South Africa and Zimbabwe couldn’t be more different. Granted, my only basis for comparison are Cape Town and the town of Victoria Falls, but you know, they seemed pretty different. Essentially, Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe are poor. Like dirt poor. As in, so poor that their own currency has no value and they use American dollars instead. So with all this poverty, we were surprised to find a tapas restaurant called Lola’s in the middle of Victoria Falls.

After a few days of eating local African food, which was awesome, it was kind of nice to get a bit of European fare. We started out with albondigas, which is just a fancy Spanish word for meatballs. These were a combination of beef and pork, cooked with a tomato sauce and were quite delicious.

I followed that up with a chicken sandwich. I suppose this wasn’t exactly how tapas were meant to be eaten, but the sandwich just seemed like a good idea. It was served on a roll and topped with all sorts of terrible vegetables, along with cheese. It also came with sweet potato chips. It took me a while to dig out the good parts from all the vegetables, but as always in a foreign country, I don’t count such a thing against Lola’s. The sandwich was actually pretty good and made a nice complement to the meatballs.

Lola’s is a great spot to hit up if you’re ever in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Seriously, I know you’re going to find yourself there. You can thank me later.

On our last night in Cape Town, we were thinking Italian and headed back to The Waterfront to find Meloncino. The restaurant might just have the greatest view of any pizza place in the world, but I must admit I have not seen every pizza view in existence. While great views are available all over Cape Town, I was more curious if great pizza existed as well.

Of the various options, which included some unique, although not overly creative options, I ordered the Provolina. Part of the reason for this was that most of the pizzas had “rocket,” which sounds like an awesome topping until you realize it is what we call arugula in the USA. The Provolina was free of rocket and instead was a sauceless pie topped with mozzarella, a nameless smoked cheese, speck and smoked beef.

It took a long time to prepare, and when it did, it was unlike any pizza I had seen before. The crust was thin, the cheese was melty, but the toppings were another thing entirely. They were gigantic, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a bad thing, except that they had been placed on the pizza after it had been sliced. This meant I had to do extra slicing on my end, which I am never a fan of. They were probably better-suited for a sandwich, but alas they were meat and that alone was a good thing.

Overall, though, the pizza wasn’t really anything special. There wasn’t a ton of flavor and while Meloncino itself didn’t give off a gimmicky vibe, it seemed as though the pizza existed solely to please the touristy crowd that craved pizza while on vacation. Perhaps it wasn’t the best meal to close out our time in Cape Town, but it could have been a lot worse.

While mzungus (foreigners) in Arusha can usually be found in or around their hotels, a walk across the city revealed to me where they also tend to hang out: the strip mall. Of course, Arusha’s strip mall is quite different from what I’m used to, there is no doubt that finding a place to eat there was a lot easier for us mzungus. I opted for a place called Empire Sports Bar which is a great place to watch sports while betting on sites like rolet online.

I should also point out here that I didn’t find one McDonald’s in Tanzania and my guide on Kilimanjaro had no idea what McDonald’s was. I am not a McDonald’s fan, but have to admit I had a craving for a burger that ordinarily could have been satisfied by fast food. Instead, I threw my cards in with Empire Sports Bar and hoped for the best.

I started out with a Safari Beer because although I didn’t go on a safari, I was curious what it would taste like. It tasted good, especially after a long walk across a dirty city. I’m sure it is meant more for long drives across pristine savanna, but I take what I can get.

For my meal, I ordered the Bacon Cheeseburger, and although I rarely do this abroad for fear of ruining a dish, I got it without onions. It didn’t mention any other veggies, so I figured I was safe. It also came with a side of fries/chips. When it arrived, my desire to avoid onions was squashed and I found it had also been loaded with other veggies. But I was in Tanzania, so I let it slide. And it looked delicious otherwise, until I bit into it. At that moment I wasn’t sure if I was eating sawdust colored brown and lumped into patty form or actual beef. Seriously, it was so dry and flavorless.

I tried improving the burger with a combination of Tanzanian ketchup and chili sauce, but it was to no avail. The burger was a loss and no matter how good the cheese, bacon or fries were, there was no saving the core of the meal.

Which is sad, because this was not a meal catering to locals, in which case I would have given Empire Sports Bar a break. No, this was a meal catering to mzungus like me and in that regard it sadly failed.

While I never felt unsafe in Arusha, I was told it wasn’t the kind of city to walk around in at night. This proved to be difficult when it came to dinner, because I was staying in a hotel on the outskirts of the city. This meant my eating options were limited if I wanted to avoid getting mugged (which I’m still not sure was an actual possibility). Yet, there were a couple restaurants near my hotel that catered to foreigners like myself. The prices were steeper than the local places in the city, but you can’t put a price on safety. Or something like that. On my first night in Arusha, I opted for The Blue Heron.

This place had an awesome garden area with cozy table and chair covers to sit at and a wood-fired oven for cooking up pizzas. I wasn’t in a rush, so I started things off with an ice cold Serengeti Beer. As I sipped away, I logged into their wireless internet and just took in The Blue Heron’s comfortable atmosphere. As I looked at the menu, I realized the prices were not simply for the food, but for the setting as well. I’m normally against this, but after climbing a mountain and spending a couple of days in the hustle bustle of Moshi and Arusha, simply chilling out was very welcome.

I ended up ordering their margherita pizza, which was a vast improvement from the pizza I had tackled at The Coffee Shop. The cheese had been nicely melted and the sauce and basil flavoring were immediately welcome on my tongue. The crust was still well-short of being great, but honestly beggars can’t be choosers. I was eating good pizza. In Tanzania. And it made me happy.

I ate my pizza slowly, not simply to enjoy its goodness, but also to take in the atmosphere of The Blue Heron. I considered ordering another beer to extend my stay, but I didn’t want to push my luck with the dangers of Arusha too late into the evening. I still don’t understand how it could get dangerous in a place that felt so safe during the day, but at least those supposed dangers led me to some decent pizza near my hotel.

As some of you loyal followers of mine may or may not know, I recently took a stroll to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. The trip included a cook who made some pretty impressive camping food, considering porters were carrying everything. Inevitably, some of the food didn’t fit into my unvegan eating habits, but I ate them anyway, because this was not about eating what I wanted, but about survival in a sense. These were things like cucumber soup, zucchini soup and veggie sauce on pasta. No, they didn’t make we want to eat veggies, but they did hammer home the lesson that hunger truly is the best spice.

There were some highlights though. One day we had some delicious grilled cheeses for lunch. I honestly don’t know what made these grilled cheeses so good. Maybe it was the fact that they were the first cheese I had eaten since arriving in Tanzania. Or maybe it was that they provided a kind of warmth on a cold day that vegetable soup simply couldn’t offer. Or perhaps it was that they were perfectly browned on both sides, the cheese was nice and melty and there is just something awesome about eating grilled cheeses on the side of Kilimanjaro.

Another great meal was “Chips Chicken.” This is basically fries and chicken, and it turns out that this is one of Tanzania’s most popular dishes. I ended up seeing this at just about every local restaurant afterwards and although it may have been quite different down at ground level, the dish definitely pleased us on the mountainside. It was accompanied by some Cole slaw that I avoided, but only because I felt the sugars and protein provided by the rest of the meal could power me up for the remainder of the day.

But nothing beats the final meal of Curried Chicken and Banana Stew. This was another local dish and was served to us on our last day, after coming back down the mountain. In it was half of a chicken from a local village. In the US we call that free range, in Tanzania they simply call that chicken (this is not to say that they don’t have factory farms in Tanzania, I just thinkthose are the chickens they distinguish, rather than the natural ones).What was so interesting about this dish was the use of bananas, which acted as a sort of potato instead of banana. This is because the banana was not yet ripe and not sweet, so it ended up a bit hard and soaked in the flavor of the curry and stew rather than adding a sweet flavor. Essentially, it acted like a potato rather than a banana. Also, I’m sure the stew tasted even better because it marked the end of an epic six-day journey.

The journey was awesome, and I’m glad it gave me an opportunity to try out some interesting new food and local specialties.