This is a long story so I might as well start from the beginning. At our home base here at The Watering Hole, we have a garage called, Kivuli Worskhop which is where we train our employees in the many disciplines involved in building an automobile, such as old Land Rovers. We buy old, antique, no-longer-in-use Land Rovers and our workers here fix them up and use them for safari vehicles and some even go to The States. Well, this week our team has been preparing for three of our Land Rovers to head to The States. On Saturday night around 9 o’clock I was informed by my colleague Peter that me and our team (Fredi, Peter, Gaspar, Amani, and Dula) are set to head to Dar es Salaam that evening around 11. It took a lot longer than that though because there wasn’t a ramp to load the cars onto the flatbed truck, so we had to find a convenient spot that was flat to load the cars onto the truck which took a lot of time. After loading all three Land Rovers onto the flatbed, we were set to depart by around 5 am the next morning.  The drive took about 13 hours, including many disruptions including being stopped 5 times by police and even getting a flat tire on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. 

After a long day of travel we finally arrived at the hotel around 9pm that night, after having a late dinner. The next day, we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel before heading to retrieve the Land Rovers from their overnight shelter. We were on the phone with the port operators all day trying to get the Land Rovers into the port, which took all day. To pass the time, our friend Gaspar showed us his family’s brewery in Dar es Salaam at the place where the Land Rovers were parked. At his brewery, a very potent type of Gin is brewed call King, as well as another chocolate Vodka called Kigogo. We didn’t try any but the brewery was fascinating, especially because most of the workers were either Maasai or women, or both! After many hours of waiting, we were finally allowed to bring the Land Rovers to the port, in the heart of Dar es Saalam. The port was 27km away (16.8m) and due to Dar traffic, the ride took us about 2.5 hours so we got to the port around 9 o’clock at night. After another hour the Land Rovers were allowed inside after which our whole team celebrated because we were so exhausted and relieved! The evening we ate meat and celebrated our success, and then quickly went to bed as we were all exhausted. The entire trip in Dar es Salaam I had been battling a stomach flu so the next morning I just relaxed in the hotel and recovered while some of our team were out attending to their own affairs. For lunch I went to a bar and restaurant where chipsi mayai and mishkaki were being sold. After finishing up and heading back, I was picked up and we were preparing to leave Dar around 4 that afternoon. We ran late and got on the road by 8:30 (running late is standard for Tanzania 🤪.) Gaspar and I made a makeshift bed in the back of the van, which was very comfortable for the long journey back home. The following morning we arrived back in Moshi where we had tea before going about our business for the day, and that is the end of our Dar es Salaam journey!