??? to Dar es Salaam - Day 350

Date: August 3rd, 2010
Distance: 11km plus cheating by trucks.
Country: Tanzania
Song of the Day: Ship My Body Home - Ben Lee

It was more than a couple of hours of sleep. We didn't get on the road until almost 8:00 AM. I was hoping to get into Dar by noon so that I could get the cheap/slow ferry to Zanzibar. I shouldn't have worried. We weren't making fast time anyway.

The trucks here really don't race around like the buses do. We took our time. The guys also stopped to pick up a load of corn (14 bales). After that, because of the extra weight, we really weren't going that fast. You can't complain really. I figured I could take the last ferry around 3:00 PM.

That dream was shattered about 6km out of Chanlinze. The truck started making a noise and bumping a bit. I thought one of the tires was flat. Instead 4 of the 5 lug nuts had come off the rear wheel. That was because the bolts on the axle had snicked off. The truck would need a new axle. Crap. I gave Joseph a bit of money and headed off to Chanlinze. I figured I could easily get a truck from there to Dar es Salaam.

When I got there I did find one, but it took a bit. The thing they didn't tell me was that the fuel pump on the truck was dead. We kept having to stop and the guys would manually pressurize the pump. That would get us down the road a bit. In the end, the 100 kilometers took about 4 hours. So I got into town after dark, or about 12 hours late. Double crap.

So no Zanzibar for me. Life is full of its little disappointments though. You can't have everything and sometimes you just have to accept that.

-Dravis