I don’t usually wax rhapsodic over hotels — to me, one is usually much the same as another. But I’ve been oohing and aahing over the Gran Meliá Arusha in Tanzania ever since my visit.

What’s so special about this place? Clearly, the view is a good start. Beyond that, it has all of the things you might expect from a 5-star hotel: a beautiful pool, a super well-equipped gym, large rooms, and a wide range of excellent food options. The whole place feels light, open, and spacious.

From Coffee to Canna Lilies: The Gran Meliá Garden

What I most loved were the features that you don’t usually find at a hotel. First of all, there’s the coffee plantation.

The Gran Meliá Arusha grows, dries, and roasts its own coffee, and they’ve created paths for guests to wander through the coffee bushes. The farming doesn’t end at coffee — this place has a full-on garden.

The Gran Meliá’s gardeners grow as many fruits and vegetables as they can for the hotel’s multiple restaurants and cafes; they also raise chickens, fish, and bees. There’s no way I can list everything, but a short list of the herbs and veggies I strolled past includes lettuce, lemongrass, rosemary, kale, amaranth, peppers, cherry tomatoes, leeks, spinach, sweet potatoes, and fennel. In the tree category, I walked past mangoes, avocados, bananas, papayas, limes, and more.

I love the hotel’s plantings — there are flowers everywhere.

It takes two dozen gardeners to keep all of this running, and I’m surprised that it doesn’t take more. I had a great time wandering the many carefully-landscaped paths that meander through the property.

Sanaa Workshop: Artisans at Work

Another fantastic thing at the Gran Meliá Arusha is the Sanaa Handicraft Workshop & Cafe. This is a sizable, half-indoor, half-outdoor area at the back of the hotel where you can watch craftspeople at work: glassblowers, metalworkers, basket weavers, jewelry makers, textile weavers, and more.

The glass workers repurpose all the wine and champagne bottles from the hotel restaurants in their pieces — I really appreciate that.

There’s a large store attached to all of this, of course, but you’re also free just to walk around and watch people at work. The craftspeople were happy to answer my many questions as best as their comfort with English allowed. I have been incredibly impressed across the board at how friendly everyone is here. One of the weavers let me sit and try out his loom, and one of the gardeners gave me a fifteen-minute impromptu private tour. The staff are constantly saying hello.

Unwinding (and Falling …) at the Gran Meliá Arusha in Tanzania

Two other things stand out as I reflect on my day here. First of all, I had an incredible massage at the lovely spa.

And then there’s the view from my room, with Mt. Meru in the distance.

Are there problems? Sure — there’s was ghost TV in my room that woke me up at both 1:30 and 4:00 in the morning, and the paving stones outside were so slippery that I fell twice. But even with those things, I’ve rarely stayed at a hotel where I spent an entire day at the property and felt like it wasn’t enough time. I was sorry to leave the Gran Meliá!

Planning a safari from Arusha? Don’t miss my essential safari guide — or start dreaming with a peek at nearby Tarangire National Park.