Chaos getting on the Dar Express Bus

By now, I have no concept of time, the date, or being tired...I don't know even know which meals we are eating anymore. Once we landed, we easily went through customs and got our packs. Then we exited the terminal. While Stephanie quickly went through, I got stopped by a normal looking lady who apparently worked at the airport, for information about my destination. As Stephanie planned the Africa itinerary I only knew that we were going to Arusha. Somehow that was good enough.

Once we were out in the open air in 32 degrees celsius weather, many Tanzanian men approached us, as we were the obvious tourist/backpacker targets, to see if we needed help. One guy that approached us was wearing a "taxi operator badge" so Steph asked how much it cost to go to the Dar es Salaam express bus stop at Ubungo....a 45-60 mins ride for $25 seemed like a good deal, we didn't even bother to negotiate. We told the guy we were meeting 3 chinese girls (Bernice, Tina, and Vicky) at the bus stop...and we got some comfort when he said he took them to town yesterday too.

We safely arrived to the bus stop, and were quickly once again attacked by tons of people trying to help us. We ended up following this guy that said he was leading us to the 9am Dar Express bus to Arusha...then we got sketched out and said we will find our own way to the ticket office and left him. Everything was just chaotic. People were everywhere and we stuck out like sore thumbs. I have to say it was neat to actually see people balance things (food, clothes) on their heads. Anyhow, there were no time for us to even process what we were doing.

Steph recalled seeing the Dar Express office, so we tried to relocate it again. The man followed us to the ticket office, and was helping us talk to the ticket man about how we were meeting three Chinese here and were supposed to all be on the 9am bus. He said he saw no Chinese yesterday or today and there were only two more tickets on the 9 am bus. Uh-oh...what to do? We still needed to locate the girls and there weren't enough seats. The best we could hope for was that they bought their tickets yesterday. Since it was 40mins to 9am, we decided to take another look at the chaotic bus stop to see if we could locate the other girls with the Tanzanian man that was helping us out before. Thankfully, the second time around we found them!!!

Excited we were, we went to buy the last two seats for the 9am...but only one seat was left. Once again, a panic started within us...and in the meantime a man approached us with a tiny $20 sticker, which Steph and I just ignored while Tina spoke for a split second to him and realized he was flashing her!!!! The man shouted at him to go away, that's when we determined he was the "good guy" at the station.

Back to only one ticket on the 9am bus....the man said no worries, there was a 9:30am luxury bus that was way nicer than the 9am for only $3 more expensive....sweet! We bought those tickets and we were finally able to calm down a bit. We each gave the man $2 to buy a "soda."

We reunited with the three girls...chit chatted a bit....watched some pigeons peck at a rat and then fly away with it (no joke this literally happened)...and then sent the 3 girls off on their bus. While we were waiting to board our bus, the bus people took our bags....and then asked for money for holding our luggage. I just ignored them, but Stephanie told them that's not what our friends did or what the ticket office told us. Eventually they left us alone.

Now we are sitting on our 9 hour bus ride to Arusha. We definitely feel adventurous and brave. Today we were definitely travelers and not tourists...