Tanzania - back in Dar es Salaam

Again, no photo for Dar es Salaam
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Adventures always happen when you last expect it!

We spent one night in Dar es Salaam (after managing to meet up with our tour friends at the port and having a proper goodbye) before heading off to Arusha, the starting point for Chris's Kilimanjaro climb.

Dukes of Dar

After the usual annoying haggling for taxis, with the drivers impressing upon us just jow expensive fuel is, we set off to the bus station with plenty of time to spare. The traffic was bad and our driver cursed as we got stuck in jam after jam, occassionally mounting the pavement and mowing over a few pedestrians to try and jump the queue. Of course this was greeted by aggressive horn hooting but you don't take it to heart because it could mean anything - thank you / move over / go past / nice hub caps (not a euphemism for anything)!

There's that moustache again
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As we arrived at the bus station a group of about five young men came sprinting out to greet us, banging on the windows and shouting unintelligibly. We wondered if our families' paranoia about us getting kidnapped (???) was about to become a reality. As they coursed around the car, rapidly (and rabidly) flailing their arms around, the driver swerved, accelerated, breaked . . . anything to shake them off. I thought we had as we sped into the station but turned round to see three of them sitting on the boot!

Different companies have different bays at the station and the driver really didn't know where ours was. So when we stopped in one area we were almost literally dragged from the vehicle by the men desperate to get us onto their company's coach do they could earn a bit of commission. Desperate to find Royal Coach, the driver slammed us into reverse and shot out of the area, the smell of burning rubber issuing from under the car as he did a full brake, 90 degree spin and hurtled off to another bay, and, eventually, our coach.

We are glad that it's another four weeks till we get to Victoria falls as the unexpected white-knuckle adventures here can be exhausting.