Morogoro to Dar

After my eventful trip, my time to Morogoro was pretty uneventful. Company training took up most of my time. We had to spend a while searching for a hotel with a room that could hold all of us for the training. Finally we settled on a place that was still under construction and had the training there. It was nice checking out the half finished upper floors and admiring the view of the gorgeous hills outside Morogoro. It was not as nice breathing in the paint fumes every day.

Anyway, after the training finished, I walked through Morogoro with our Sales Manager, Wema, for a meeting and then I walked to the other side of town to grab a bus to Dar es Salaam (or Dar for short). I enjoyed walking the town to get a sense of it and I was surprised how big it felt there. I got to the bus station and found a bus that was about to pull out, so I hopped right on. Morogoro is pretty hot this time of year, so even the five minutes sitting in the parking lot before we set out was enough for most of us on the bus to break a sweat.

The bus ride was uneventful and I was relieved to get in a little before 5. This was my first trip to Dar and I didn't know my way around. I picked the direction where the big hotels were and figured there would also be some smaller (read cheaper) guest houses in the area as well. I zigzagged for a little over 2 hours and the only guest house that I found was booked up. As darkness set in, my luck changed and I found a bar that had a dozen rooms in the back. It was 10,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $6.50) per night and was self-contained (the Tanzanian way of saying "en suite"). It didn't have things like toilet paper, towels or soap, but I've learned by now to travel with them.

I found a little restaurant down the road that was a nice local joint. I figured that since I was finally on the coast, I had better order some fish. Unfortunately, it was the same type and freshness of fish that I get in Arusha, but it didn't taste nearly as good. Then I walked back to my guest house and discovered that the bar stayed open until 1 with music playing. Once they closed down I drifted into a nice deep sleep to get ready for my upcoming adventure in Dar.