Day 301 – Tanzania

August 2, 2010 – Iringa to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Neither one of us is looking forward to our bus ride today.

It’s an 8-hour slog from Iringa to Dar es Salaam, but since it’s 8 hours “African time”, who knows how long it’ll really be. So just in case it turns into a 10 or 12 hour-ride, we’ve packed lots of snacks to help us through the journey… water, cashews, bananas, carrots and ginger snaps.

The ride does have a nice bright spot to it as we get an impromptu safari when we drive through Tanzania’s third largest national park, Mikumi. We see zebra, antelopes, giraffes, Cape buffalo, baboons and at least one elephant… not a bad haul for just driving through!

Eventually we arrive in Dar es Salaam – 9 hours later – and are greeted by what appears to be every taxi driver in the city… we haven’t had to deal with this in a long time. Some of the drivers are actually pointing at us and trying to “stake claim” before we’re even out of the bus.

Thanks to our helpful “seat neighbours” we learn that our bus actually goes right into the city centre, so instead of hopping off we just wait and catch a free ride downtown. They also let us know that a taxi ride from the stop in the city centre to our hotel should only cost around 3,000 Tanzanian shillings (TZS), which is very good to know.

As we’re driving to the city centre we actually go past our hotel and it happens to be located very close to where we end up getting dropped off. So you can only imagine my surprise when I’m greeted by a taxi driver telling me it will cost 10,000 TZS for a ride to the hotel. I look at him, point in the direction of our hotel and say “but it’s just over there!” He responds by telling me that because I am a foreigner, I must pay the foreigner price. Eric and I look at him and laugh and then tell him 3,000 TZS or we walk. We go back and forth for a bit – neither of us really feels like walking with all our stuff – and eventually we agree on 4,000 TZS. Eric and I both feel this is a pretty good bargain as we never expect to get the local price… it’s amazing how a little information can help a lot.

The driver takes us the 2 minutes to our hotel and we check-in hassle free. What a welcome to Dar es Salaam – I hope this isn’t a reflection of the entire city.