A Boab
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2009
1
65
89
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Today was our longest driving day. We left at 6am, up at 5am. It took forever to get out of there but maybe we should have enjoyed the distraction. Back on the truck we drove for hours, even missing our 2 hour bathroom break and pushing it closer to 3 hours. I crawled into my sleeping bag again and was falling into a blissful dream when we suddenly hit the breaks and I rolled helplessly off my seat, narrowly missing smacking my head on the table and crashing to the ground, snugly caught up in my bag.
We made sandwiches while en route, which while a careful balancing act felt like a huge upgrade to making sandwiches in the morning. Some days when we made our sandwiches in the morning the cheese would be melted by the time we ate it, my peanut butter sandwich radiating heat and steaming up the bag I wrapped it in. So this felt like a fresh new alternative. As we drove the landscape changed dramatically and suddenly we were surrounded with lush vegetation, banana trees galore and an intense amount of poverty we had not previously seen. The little towns here were all dirt roads and even the stores were made out of tin and cardboard. Everywhere people were sitting and lounging, not doing anything.
The line for the ferry was incredibly long, snaking back for miles and not moving at all. We sat in the hot bus for a while, finally deciding to get out and stroll after putting on scarves to wrap our bare shoulders. Earlier in the day we had taken pictures out the truck windows and people had hidden their faces, yelling furiously. Heini mentioned that some people felt their souls were being stolen when their picture was taken, so of course after that we either didn't take pictures of people or we did so at a distance so that they didn’t see it or feel it a burden. After what felt like forever we were finally on our way to the ferry, the truck moving slowly. When we got there, we hopped off the truck and made our way on to the ferry that was packed with people, climbing to the second level and watching as people streamed on and off the ferry.
When we finally arrived to the campsite 10 hours later you would think we had done something really strenuous; we were all exhausted.
