Day 59: The Bus to Dar

          Remember how I said that things always take longer in Tanzania, and that transportation is highly unreliable, especially if you need to get from point A to point B quickly?  Well guess what this post is about?!
          So today we were supposed to leave Moshi for Morogoro to visit my Mjomba Ndelilio, and then from there go to Dar for a two day religious assembly.  Supposed to.  Mjomba Terevaeli had gone with Baba last night to buy the tickets.  However, there were only two buses to Morogoro, one left at 7:30, and still had room, and the other was full.  Which meant that we would have to take a bus to Dar and get off at Chalinze.
          Baba called Ndelilio to make sure this would be alright, and this turned out to be a very good thing.  As it turned out, Ndelilio was not in Morogoro, he was in central Tanzania in the capital of Dodoma on business.  Good thing Baba acted like a Mzungu and called him first!  Mjomba Terevaeli swore up and down that it had to have been the hand of God who directed affairs just right so that we didn't waste our time going to Morogoro.
          So instead we booked a ten am express bus for Dar.  I had made sure that Terevaeli got us tickets on the last bus out of Moshi, as I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the bus station, so as to not be late.  Little did I know...
          We got up, packed, showered, ate breakfast, and got to the bus station just before ten, barely on time.  I wish the same could have been said for the bus.  Twenty minutes later it still wasn't there.  Mjomba Terevaeli went to ask what was going on.  The travel agents explained that the bus had been delayed, but that it would be here any moment.  And, as we both know, "Any moment now" is actually a Kiswahili phrase for, "Any time between now and the end of next the week".
          So we waited for an hour.  No bus.  Waited another hour.  No bus.  Ate lunch, waited another hour.  No bus.  It's really hot in Moshi (almost like Dar, but not quite), and I finally went to order a milkshake.  Before I could even finish ordering, the bus came, 3 1/2 hours late, and we had to hurry on board.  At least there was AC...
          I took lots of pictures of the trip on the way down.  I didn't get the whole thing, as the sun set before we got to Dar because we left so late.  But I might post some of the pictures I did get later.  We got to Dar at around ten.  Anandumi, my cousin, was waiting to pick us up, along with my other cousin Ebenezer.  We were staying at Anandumi's place in Kigamboni, which is actually across the bay from Dar central on a peninsula.  I was a little worried that the ferries wouldn't be running that late, but as it turns out they run 24/7.  Good thing, as otherwise, I don't know where we would have slept...


E’ya! - Tate


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