Have stayed a couple of times here when climbing Kilimanjaro. A great spot for starting at the Machame gate which is just a 20 minute drive away but a way out of Moshi town.

Lovely peaceful grounds and a nice pool. Food was good and the staff friendly and helpful.

Room was clean but basic, some of our group had no hot water.

3 of us stayed here for 2 nights before our Kilimanjaro climb and one night afterwards. First impressions were nice with nice gardens and a decent size pool albeit a bit cloudy. That was the good part. We had two rooms, one of which was changed after 6 attempts to find a key that would open it. The showers in neither room worked properly - either scalding or freezing or off with water heading in all directions. One loo did not flush at all. One room had a noisy compressor outside, the other one was quiet and not a bad size. The restaurant was awful. The lunch and dinner menu was the same 4 items, except for 'lunch' or 'dinner' at the top. The food to an age to arrive and was overcooked without exception, except the beef which was only inedible. The bar ran out of cold beer after just 3 or 4. Breakfast was uninspiring watermelon and pineapple (they had mangos literally falling off the trees but none to eat in the restaurant), or bread/toast and one cereal, and you could ask for eggs if you were not in any hurry. We had better food up the mountain than we did in the restaurant. There was a problem with electricity in the region and although the hotel does have a compressor, it was off for most of the day. When we returned after our trek and really needed a shower, they did switch it on for a while and the showers this time did at least function. And, one item on the menu had changed, but it still took ages to get anything and was still overcooked. Overall feeling was that the hotel was well past its best and on the way out. It needs a serious refurbishment and new management to motivate the staff. For what we got, it was expensive. This really could be a very nice hotel - but it isn't.

You're in the middle of rural villages and you're about to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, where you'll spend a week in the wilderness with relatively few minimalist comforts.

So, you would really want a good's night sleep before you leave civilization, and Protea Hotel Aishi, part of a Tanzanian chain of hotels and resorts, fits the bill. On beautifully landscaped grounds in Machame, just a 20-minute drive from Kilimanjaro National Park's Machame Gate, the hotel has a nice traditional architecture of woods and whitewashed walls that still manage to look pleasingly rustic. The rooms are spacious, with enough room for a desk, a little coffee table and two cushioned armed chairs, and a very clean bathroom. The beds are comfortable and because it gets nippy at night, you don't quite need air-conditioning - in fact, it's really nice to be wrapped up under the linens in natural chill. It's still rural Tanzania, so you don't get the gamut of modern technology and in-room entertainment, but that's not why you're there - it's far more pleasant to sit on the patio outside the restaurant and sip a nice African red.

Speaking of the restaurant, that's where this story takes a turn for the worse. The front office staff is very friendly, welcoming and helpful, and it's great when a couple of them trot over to the restaurant to help out. But the rest of the food and beverage staff are unforgivingly unhelpful. At the breakfast buffet, eyes were raised and certainly I felt uncomfortable about ordering three eggs (I was just looking for some protein pre-climb since the sausages were rather undesirable!). Also, an expedition mate who was looking to fill her thermos with hot coffee was chided, and didn't get her java. It's not quite certain what the definition of "buffet" means, in this case! That aside, the food was just terrible - you'd be lucky to order something that would simply be passable in normal circumstances. Still, we didn't hold the restaurant to such exacting standards, considering where we were, but just a heads-up. Unfortunately, it's not like you can walk out to find a restaurant in the village, so what you see on the menu is what you eat.

Otherwise, we found the Protea to be a great pre-trek stop point, and the night we stayed there after our climb was also much appreciated and enjoyed. The hotel was very comfortable to begin with and when every little basic luxury is accentuated after a week on the mountain, it all seems like a really, really nice set-up. It's a good thing we were too tired to care about the restaurant service for dinner, although I wish I'd gotten the fish instead of the steak.

We stayed there 2 nights:

The girl at the reception: very cool, no smile and very unfriendly.

The rooms (we had 3 in 2 days): no hot shower, no mosquito nets, no windows which you could really close. We felt very unsecured at the first floor.

TV: yes but no signal.

Water in the basin: dirty.

The meals : excellent.