Journey back to Dar, Day Two

There are like 18 other posts below this one, but **Warning** they are not in order. The posts got confused when trying to publish about 20 posts at once! Read them anyways or else!!!!

Even knowing we had to be up extra early, neither of us could fall asleep as early as we needed to, so the 6:00am alarm was a rude awakening. The others in the team wanted an early departure so that we’d have time to stop at a serpent zoo and still arrive before dark in Dar es Salaam.

We were on the road by 7:00am, having had tea (none for Montana), a hard-boiled egg, & a slice of bread. The drive was to Dar was better than the one from Dar. That one had involved driving up a long, curvy, steep narrow road in the dark, with Mohammed having to decide when it was safe to pass…not to mention seeing about 4 fuel tankers on their sides along the road. This time we saw no accidents at all. Some of the mountain road passing was still a bit of a thrill, but the “playing chicken” driving techniques seem to be finely-tuned here.

The drive itself was uneventful…just loooooong! We did stop to “check tires” a time or two, plus have lunch and stop at the serpent zoo. It was still 11 hours from the time we left the Lutheran Centre to when we pulled into the Slipway Hotel in Dar es Salaam.

The serpent zoo was a small roadside attraction with about 10 or 12 snakes housed in separate “rooms”. There were mambas, boas, and cobras among others. The cobra did its impressive “hooded” position when the handler reached in with a stick & placed it close to the glass wall where we stood. Also at the zoo were turtles and three crocodiles, of which one was about 55, another about 35 years old.

 

We had lunch at a different place than when we had gone to Pommern. There seem to be various places along the road to stop to eat, but apparently most of the guests are tourists.

While passing through the national park, we saw several antelope species, some zebras, and a couple of giraffes, along with the ever-present baboons. None were nearly as impressive, though, as we saw during our safari.

Though we encountered some traffic jams through some other towns along the way, none can compare to Dar es Salaam. That begins on the outskirts and is non-stop all the way. Sometimes, the wait runs into 10 to 15 minutes, during which time you can see the cross-traffic moving right along. Then all of a sudden, your column is moving with cars, motorbikes, Indian 3-wheeled “taxis”, buses, tanker trucks, large motor coaches all heading for the same open spot that opens in front of you. The pedestrians are on their own for crossing from one side of the street to the other.

We did survive the more than 10-hour long drive, and made it in one piece, however, and had an hour to shower before climbing back into the same wet, sticky clothes we’d been wearing all day. Our team met in the lobby at 7:00pm for a wonderful dinner on the outdoor patio right next to the beach. Montana and LuRue excused themselves a bit early, while the others enjoyed drinks. The two headed for a wonderful ice cream shop in the hotel mall for a small scoop of mint ice cream, the first they had had in weeks.