The bus trip to Dar

---

I'll start by saying that this is probably the only day of the trip I would do differently if I had the chance to do it over.

I was up at 5.45 to get the Dar Express bus from Moshi to Dar Es Salaam. The trip should take 7 hours, which would allow me to connect with the ferry to Zanzibar. Unfortunately what should have been a 7 hour trip turned into a 9 hour ride from hell stuck in a tiny seat. The main delays were caused by the Police, that stopped us every 75km or so to do some sort of bogus inspection along with a couple of stops in the middle of nowhere when the entire bus would empty out to water the trees. We eventually got into Dar at 4.00pm, tantalisingly close to the time when the ferry would leave. Myself and a couple of Dutch girls from the bus pile into a taxi to the Wharf in the hopes that the ferry kept the same sort of schedule as the buses, but without reckoning on the Dar traffic. 45 minutes later we are at the wharf and the ferry is long gone. Never mind, such is travelling in Africa. I book a ticket for the 7.00am ferry next day and bok into the rainbow Hotel about 250metres from the terminal. The hotel is nice and clean but at US$45 its expensive. Am shattered after a day on the bus so a quick feed of that Tanzanian favourite, steak & chips, or what passes for it, and its lights out.

---