I'm not going to lie, the past few days haven't been my favorite, yet despite the hardship of the travel I am still so grateful to have this opportunity and to see such a different culture - even if it seems like it has been from afar.
Since the last blog post not too much exciting has happened, but we have covered a lot of distance. Moshi was nice - there was a good bar across the street from our campsite that was playing the World Cup and had a decent wifi connection (although not good enough for FaceTime). We had a nice group dinner made of Scottish Pie (just like Shepard's Pie), and some cucumber soup. I stayed up later than I normally do and went to bed around 9:30. Even though I got to sleep relatively early, we were up the next morning at 3:30 a.m. and departed Moshi by 5 a.m. to be on our way to Dar Es Salaam. The truck ride was pretty brutal - there were a lot of speed bumps, a lot of bad roads, and a lot of traffic - all of which made sleeping almost impossible and caused the hours to drag on. We didn't make it to our camp site until about 5:45 p.m., but our guide had said that he didn't expect to make it before 8. It took us about 2 hours to travel 10 km to our campsite through the traffic in Dar Es Salaam.... I'm thinking the city needs some serious civic engineering. One thing that I have been witnessing in Tanzania is the fact that many road's construction is sponsored by foreign governments. Japan has sponsored many from what I can tell, and seems to be the most active foreign government in the country.
It was quite nice once we made it to our camp site. The site was located on the beach, and although the general area was not a safe one, the campsite was guarded by multiple Masai men and was very secure. The bar was nice, and the facilities were spacious, but unfortunately the showers used salt water. Nonetheless, it was nice to be on a beach after such a hectic drive. The travel didn't stop there, however. We got up this morning at 6 and were ready to go by 7. Instead of taking the truck, we were picked up by Tuk Tuks who drove us to a ferry site so that we weren't walking through a bad part of town. We boarded the ferry along with a ton of locals to get across the bay to the main part of Dar Es Salaam, and had to endure a stampede of people trying to get on with us. Luckily everyone made it and we were able to carve out some standing space for our group on board the ferry. When we got to the other side of the waterway, we got off and walked 2km to another ferry that would take us to Zanzibar. We waited about half an hour in the terminal, then another 30 minutes through the boarding process. We got seats inside, which was air conditioned, but unfortunately it smelled SO bad and really was tough to handle along with the rolling seas. The ferry ride lasted 2 hours. We were met by a local G Adventures representative in Zanzibar who had a bus waiting for us. We all got on, stopped for some water, and drove another hour and a half to the north tip of the island to our hotel for tonight and tomorrow night. I couldn't be happier to be here now! The room is fine but the view at the hotel is unreal. We're on the water and the water is just beautiful. The restaurant and bar is a great location, and the food and drinks were good albeit a bit expensive on the African scale. They also have a massage parlor on site that I took advantage of upon arrival. For $20 I was able to treat myself to an hour long massage, which really helped to relieve some of the tension of the past few days. I still have a bit of a headache which is probably the result of dehydration along with just being worn down, but I'm hoping that with a little more rest in Zanzibar it will go away.
Tomorrow I am going scuba diving and I'm really excited for the trip! I'll write again when I'm back.
Day 8:
Today was the first day off the road and it was fantastic. I woke up early, sat at the breakfast table by the sea for hours drinking multiple cups of tea, and I had a wonderful time scuba diving! We dove two spots at about 15m a piece. We saw a ton of pretty fish, a giant sea turtle, a sitting octopus and so much more - it was a truly enjoyable experience. The sunset tonight was great, and I had dinner with one of the other travelers down the beach thanks to our dive shop for comped our meal. I'm happy and settled. We get back on the road tomorrow to head towards Stonetown in Zanzibar. On our way there we're stopping for a tour of the spice plantation - It'll be a great trip, but I'm sad to have to leave the beach - it's been absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately the internet is still weak and I cannot upload pictures, but I can't wait to share some of the images of my journey!
