Farmhouse Camp, Tanzania to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Little did we know when we got up this morning at 4:00 AM that today would be the longest, most spirit-sapping driving day of our journey. We left the Farmhouse at 5:00 AM, an hour and a half before sunrise, and began our descent from the Tanzanian Highlands towards the coast.

The day turned into one long blur, punctuated by roadside “Tanzanian Traffic Courts”. Will was pulled over several times, and when the police couldn’t ticket him for anything else, they fined him for Driving While Wearing Flip-Flops (a DWWF?).

We stopped to stretch our legs in a valley of rolling hills with Baobab trees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia) as far as you could see. If you aren’t familiar with these trees, they can best be described as something Tolkien would have dreamt up if he had written a science fiction novel… Our suspicion is that at night, when there is no one to witness, they are able to pull up their roots and wander the valley.

Other-worldly Baobab trees.

Baobab tree.

Much later in the day, we knew we hit the outskirts of Dar es Salaam when the traffic came to a screeching halt. It was hot, humid, and stinky with diesel fumes spewing from every type of vehicle imaginable. Within seconds, you could taste the dust and diesel coating the back of your throat. We crawled along at less than a walking pace for hours.

Dar es Salaam traffic.

On either side of the road there were markets similar to those we had seen in every village along the way. Only now the chaos was magnified ten-fold.

Dar es Salaam street market.

Eventually we made it to the Dar es Salaam cross-harbour ferry, where we were told to disembark and cross as foot passengers. Will and Ebron pulled Malaika into the vehicle line-up, while Brett ushered us through the foot passenger ticket booth. Little did we know this would be the last we saw of Will, Ebron, and Malaika for nearly two hours.

Getting onto the ferry as a foot passenger is like being in the front of a crush of people at a rock concert: you are swept along by the crowd and hope you don’t get bounced off too many stanchions along the way. All this for a six minute ferry ride.

Rush to get off ferry.

It was no less chaotic on the far side. We were seven tired, dirty, hungry travellers who were literally stuck on a foreign shore. Malaika had not made it onto the ferry. After 20 minutes Will phoned Brett to inform him of the change in rules: large trucks were no long permitted on the cross-harbour ferry. The only apparent option was a two hour drive around the harbour. Will told us he and Ebron were working on a solution.

So, with no other viable alternative, we walked into the nearest bar and started drinking. The view of the harbour from the bar was decent with dhows and the ferries going about their business in the dusk. However, the music sounded like it was being amplified through a K-Mart installed boom-car system. Bad music is definitely not made any better by increasing the volume and distortion.

Harbour view from bar.

About an hour later, we heard from Will. Ebron had managed to negotiate a way for Will to pay a “special service charge” to the manager of the ferry, and Malaika was miraculously allowed a one-time exemption to the no trucks rule.

After reuniting with Will, Ebron, and Malaika, we continued on to the Sunrise Camp (http://www.sunrisebeachresort.co.tz/) without further misadventure.

We finally got to set up our tents at 8:30 PM – in the dark… again. Damn, we’re getting good at this. Dinner, and a cigar for Roger, was the only way to end this long, grueling day.