When we arrived in humid Dar es Salaam, we were greeted by an eager taxi driver and bus service representative. We purchased our bus tickets for the following morning to Arusha. We're pretty sure we got ripped off. The eager taxi driver took us to our hotel - the Jambo Inn. The power was out at the Jambo Inn so our room had no air conditioning until the power came back on in the evening. Even then, the air conditioning unit was ridiculously loud so we couldn't really leave it on while sleeping. The shower, if it can really be called that, let out no more than a sprinkle. We each had a rinse and tried to sleep.
Since the man we bought our bus tickets from told us to arrive at the bus station fifteen minutes before our scheduled 8am departure time, we arrived promptly at 7:45. The bus, however, did not leave until after 8:30. Obviously it would be silly to leave until the bus was full. We were told that travel time to Arusha was 8 hours. It turned out with all the stopping to drop off and pick people up that it actually took almost 12. The bus had no toilet on board but we did have two stops where toilets were available. Otherwise, protocol seemed to be to alert the bus driver to your needs so that he could pull over to the side of the road. Entertainment on the bus included various Tanzanian television programs and music videos. For a brief amount of time we were lucky enough to get some Madonna, Michael Bolton, and Christina Aguilera.
When we finally arrived in Arusha, we were greeted at the bus by Duncan, a driver for our tour company. We were very glad to see him and be whisked off to L'Oasis Lodge for dinner, briefing on our Kilimanjaro hike, and sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment