Friday 15 December 2017. Photos.
Highlights: Dar Es Salam Beach

Today was an extremely long travel day. We had to be packed, have breakfast and be gone by 6 am. I noticed that Bill had overslept and Arran and myself helped bring down his tent. We also made and packed our lunch before leaving as we wouldn’t be stopping for lunch today. We had to try and beat the worse of the Dar Es Salam traffic later in the day.

This was one of the hottest days on the truck, probably worse because the humidity was getting higher the closer we came to the Indian Ocean. There were only a couple of toilet stops along the way but one of them allowed me to purchase a couple of soft drinks for $1,000 Tanzanian Shillings each (around $0.50 USD each) which helped a great deal.

We arrived at the campsite around 3 pm which was great. This time the vast majority of the group upgrade to a basic bungalow room, no one wanted to put up a tent in this heat if they could avoid it. I ended up sharing a triple bed bungalow with Logan and Emilie right near the beach. Both Emilie and Logan are great people, they will be leaving the group after we get back from Tanzibar and returning to New Zealand via UAE just in time for Christmas.

I took up the offer from our driver to source a local to clean my clothes which should hopefully be waiting for my on my return from Zanzibar. We are only taking small bags to Zanzibar as there will be some walking involved. My big pack will stay safely locked up in the overland truck that is staying in Dar Es Salaam.

I did get to enjoy the beach and the sea water for a short while. The water was actually very warm and nice, the seaweed however wasn’t so nice. Still a good way to cool down and relax after a hot travel day. Going to sleep on the picturesque beach and listening to the waves was a good way to finish the day.