My return to Dar Es Salaam and the Kempinski Kilimanjaro

Now that we have gotten past the long-promised safari-related posts, time to continue to update my status.

After such drama getting TO Zanzibar, I had quite a bit of anxiety with regards to my boat trip to Dar. I hardly expected it to go as smoothly as it did. By the time 12pm rolled around and it was time to depart the Clove Hotel, I was ready to do so. I had grown weary of the much more aggressive street touts, always trying to harangue some form of payment via tour, taxi, etc; they were much more aggressive here than they had been in either Dar (where they were still fairly intense) and Mwanza. A taxi came and took me to the dock. As I got there, a torrential downpour began, but fortunately the waiting area was covered. Many ex pats and travelers were here, awaiting the ferry as well, and I anticipated it would end up being quite crowded.

Surprisingly, the ferry arrived on time. It was quite large, and there was plenty of room for both me and my garish green luggage ;) The trip was smooth, lasting about 2 hours, and I spent some of it (about 20 minutes) writing blog posts (until my battery died), and the rest just listening to my ipod. I unfortunately did not have a a great window seat, but I tried to strain to see through a window on occasion. The seas were smooth and Neptune was smiling upon us, granting us smooth passage.

I arrived in Dar, quickly found a taxi, and for only 5000Tsh arrived at the Kempinski unscathed. What happened next, however, was extremely unexpected... and is something I am still dealing with to a significant extent now, and I anticipate will get worse over the next several days....