Over night Ferry from Zanzibar to Dar

As it came time for us to move on from our air conditioned room in the White Sands Hotel and head for an overnight ferry to Dar Es Salamn, we knew we leaving luxury behind and heading for the unknown. We of course went for the cheap tickets on the ferry – seats but no mattresses... We were pleasantly surprised when we were shown to our deck though, it was air conditioned with a television and reasonable leg room however it soon became clear that the matreses were worth the extra €5... The ferry left the dock at 9.30 – 10am and arrived in Dar at 6am so it was a relatively long night moving between chairs to the bare floor to try and ascertain some form of comfort and at least a little sleep... On arrival at Dar it lived up to its name of being busy, with lots of venders trying to sell you everything from biscuits to taxi’s, but we were lucky in finding Mr. Alpha who would be our guide and taxi driver to the city for the 24 hours that we would stay there. We went to check into the YMCA at about 7am and waited around the cafeteria till 11.30 when our room was finally ready. As I was all stuffed up and basically feeling miserable I slept for about 20 of the 2 hours we spent in the Dar. The girls went to check out buses to Kigali while I slept in the room and when they returned they had already bought the bus tickets for the next morning at 6am and had no desire to spend any longer in Dar than was absolutely necessary. Our evening did improve however as we discovered the Holiday Inn across from the YMCA which was like a little slice of heaven... A completely modern, air conditioned hotel with actual menu’s and fancy dinning room – it was like we had stepped through a vortex into a parallel universe where all the best in Western cuisine had found its way to Tanzania. I had the best tomato and pesto pasta of my life, as well as a cold coca cola and a huge chocolate brownie with ice-cream for dessert. It was pure indulgence and it was wonderful.

The next morning Mr. Alpha picked us up at 5.15am to take us to the bus stop for the next le of our journey...