It's been a long time...
So first of all, my apologies. I've been quite busy recently and frankly a bit lazy too.
orange juice, safari, bus to arusha
Came back from a safari. In order to get to Arusha, which is a city in the north, next to Kilimanjaro, we had to take a bus. The day before our safari Myarcello and went to Ubungo (one of the main coach stations) to tickets. As we got there at 6PM it was already getting dark. Honestly it was the first time I was properly scared here in Tanzania. The bus station looks exactly the way you'd imagine an African coach station. Full of people (and other creatures). In order to save some space, everyone carries their bags, suitcases and such on their heads. Very loud. As we entered the station we were immediately approached by many locals trying to sell us tickets. 'Mzungu! Where do you want to go?' Armed in confidence and a little bit of experienced we passed all of them, avoiding any type of conversation. We reached the area full of offices of different coach companies. The word 'office' is a bit of overstatement. We entered one of them - Dar Express. About 90% of the companies have the word 'Express' in their names, which, as we learned the next day, has nothing to do with reality.
The Dar Express office was in fact a 5m x 3m room full of people, obviously without any sort of uniform or identification, which made things more difficult as we didn't know who to talk to. We came up to a desk that we believed was the right place.
I can proudly announce that I managed to carry the whole conversation in swahili. We were supposed to leave at 6AM, but all the buses were already fully booked. 6AM full, 7AM full, 8AM - 6 seats, 9AM - 7 seats. We needed 11.
Moreover, even the bus prices are not fixed. They are not displayed ANYWHERE. So it's up to the person selling the tickets how much he's going to charge you.We went to a different office. The guy in the office clearly did not give a single fuck about us. He was too busy playing on his phone and enjoying a conversation with his colleague. After asking him about 4-5 times, he finally pointed at his friend, standing outside the office who told us to follow him. We followed him for about 5 minutes, God knew where we were going as he did not speak a single word in English. We took us to another office, which turned out to be just a random guy standing on his own and selling tickets. He didn't have enough tickets either.
Long story short, we went to another office, which probably looked the worst out of all the offices out there. Five guys sitting inside, some guy passed out on the floor (for whatever reason - drugs, hunger, malaria, or maybe just cold - the reason of his mild delirium), CHICKENS running around. We managed to get the price down to 25,000 (about $15 USD) as it started off with 40,000. Then the guy took out a pile of tickets and started filling them up. Neatly changed the price from 22,700 to 25,000 with his pen and gave us the tickets. Surprisingly, the name of the company did not have 'Express' in it. We were travelling with Royal Class Osaka...
The distance between Dar Es Salaam and Arusha is approximately 650km. Took us 15 HOURS to get there. THE BUS BROKE DOWN TWICE. Below Tanzanian engineering at its finest. The first time we had to wait for about an hour. The second, a little bit less than two. The bus was completely full, with some people standing. It was the first time I've seen a bus with 5 seats in a row (2+3). So I spent 15 hours on the bus, with a big bag on my lap and a Masai sitting next to me, not being able to move.
I will upload some pictures as soon as I can, but currently can't find my phone cable to get them on my laptop, so please, be patient (that's what Africa is all about :)).
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz