Day 25 - MON - 8/10/12 - Arusha : Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Long driving day today at 14 hours and 15 minutes!!
Leaving camp early we passed Mt Kilimanjaro in the distance and by the hot early afternoon we were passing through a city on the way to Dar es Salaam with very intense traffic. Small African children were standing on the side of the road repeating "hello, hello, hello" and were waving. It was this that Kearnsy decided would be great to bring one home as it would make a great door greeter; almost like one of those lucky Chinese cats with the paws waving up and down. Very cute kids! It was at this same point in the stand still traffic that ice cream vendors were pedalling their wares up beside the bus. The vendors were climbing up on their bicycle seats and balancing to hawk their ice creams into our bus.
It was a day at seeing African retail at its best as much later in early night after the sun had gone down, when we were almost at Mikardi Beach - our camp for the night. We were crawling through the traffic and the footpaths were lit up with little palm oil lamps (no larger than keosine lamps) creating a glow over the street food vendors culinary delights. The were positioned every metre or so all down the main streets.
From Mikardi Beach we would be leaving the main land for a few days for the island of Zanzibar tomorrow in 'Amazing Race' style - tuk tuks, local car ferry, high speed ferry crossing and then a 1.5hr mini bus trip to our hotel on the beach.
