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.

Stayed two nights at this hotel, one either side of a trip up Kili. I was pleasantly surprised by the look and feel of the hotel and thought the public areas and the rooms were good. As for other reviewers, I must admit that the shower temperature is a challenge - getting anything other than cold and boiling hot is not easy!
The pool was clean and thoroughly enjoyable on the first day but as they'd put chemicals in before our return we couldn't use it again which was a disappointment.
The food we had was pre-arranged as we were a large group - it was okay but nothing exceptional and a few of us had rather dodgy stomachs after our celebration dinner (after managing 5 days up Kili without a problem). The hotel also tried to charge come people for the dinner again in the morning when they checked out.
My main tip would be that the staff could try a smile every now and again.

We were climbing Kili, and stayerd there before and after. Our tour company had booked it for us, and after looking at the website, we were quite excited to get there.

We had just been on safari for 9 days, and needed a hot shower, to wash some clothes, and a good, hot meal.

When we got there, it looked as pretty as the website, although obviously empty, since it was low season. The grounds are phenomenal, with covered walkways between buildings. The staff were all very helpful in getting our bags to the rooms. Once in the rooms, we realized that the hot and cold taps really do nothing, as the water temperature is set randomly. The levered drain plugs in all 5 rooms we had during 2 stays did not work, so you could either have a very slow drain or pull the plug out completely. In one room, we could physically push the plug down, but then had to wrench the lever back up. The windows did not close, and there were no mosquito nets in the room, which is an interesting way to spend the night before and aftera 6 day hike.

The pool area was nice, although the solar heating obviously refers to the fact that the sun shines on the dirt at the bottom. We had to go to the front desk to ask for cushions for the loungers.

After an agonizing time trying to get things in the room to work, we decided to get some lunch. The well used menu with tacky, pixellated pictures of hot dogs was given to us by a waiter who did not speak english, and we were told that 2 of the 10 regular items (both of which are frozen in every restaurant) were not available. We ordered, and luckily had playing cards with us, as the entire lunch ordeal took 1 1/2 hours. The Chicken Mayonaise Sandwich was decent, but the steak was beyond well done, and in a curry sauce not mentionned on the menu. The pasta was the only "good" thing we ordered.

We made the mistake of going back for dinner, and we asked about the pasta off the lunch menu. 10 minutes later the waiter got back and told us he thinks they can make it.
Breakfast was a buffet the first time, consisting of "fresh squeezed" juice, rancid butter, cheap, generic jam, Weetabix, and warm milk, as well as our choice of eggs, which took 20 minutes after I told the waiter we were in a rush. The second time we stayed, we did not get the buffet, although the breakfast was similar.

In the morning, we asked to use their dryer for 10 minutes to finish drying our clothes, which they happily let us. It was not until after they brought them to the room, folded, and had received a nice tip that they told us they would charge us regular laundry fees, totalling $15 for 10 items dried. We also discovered that internet use, on one of their office computers that took 3 minutes to get to google, cost $5.

On our second stay, we decided to go into Moshi for lunch. We asked at the front desk, and they told us that they could offer a shuttle for $30 or the local bus. After some prompting, they told us we could get a cab for about $15, and they told us it would be 20 minutes. An hour later, the cab showed up.

Luckily, our tour company was paying for it, but even still, this hotel was a disappointment on every level. With a bit of management, this hotel could be a great book end to a kili climb, but as it stands, it needs work in every department.