Destination: Zanzibar – worth it?

Today we need to get to Dar Es Salaam on the coast in order to make it to Zanzibar island as quickly as possible to enjoy our last week relaxing on the beach. The day unfortunately turns into the journey from hell.
At 6.30am we’re approaching the bus station and are overrun with touts all trying to sell us tickets. They scream for attention; “Where you going?”, “Do you have ticket?”, “Come with me, come with me”. I shout at them in frustration to try to shock them into calming down. It seems to work a bit and they certainly become a bit more polite. We’re led to a small booking office and sold some tickets which seem about right for the 8.30am bus to Dar. I was hoping for something earlier as there is a long way to go but they claim there is not an earlier bus. We pay 9500 TS each for the tickets which is 3000 TS less than the book says. This gets my suspicions up but when we get on the bus we get clobbered (possibly unofficially) 3000 TS to stow our bags so it all adds up in the end. The problem, as we later realise, is the tickets aren’t Express ones and this proves a costly mistake.
We sit on the bus until 8.30am – getting touted at for all sorts of things through the windows. At one point, I have to congratulate one hopeful young boy for trying to sell me an ironing board. I buy some dry cup cakes and cashew nuts for breakfast – not very nice. Amazingly they’ll attempt the old ironing board sale but when you want a cooked breakfast, they can’t help you.
The bus is only about half full and one thing I know from experience never happens in the developing world is a bus leaving before its full. So, in the most frustrating fashion the bus inches its way around a great loop of the bus station, hawking for passengers until finally, stuffed to the gunnels (people sitting in the isles) and 1.5 hours late, it pulls free of the town and throttles out to a relatively speedy 60mph. Unfortunately because it stops every 100 m to let more people on or off, the average speed is much lower.
Not getting Express tickets is just one of those things and we laugh inwardly at our own terrible misfortune. Overall the day proves to be intensely uncomfortable but it is an experience which no true exploration of Africa could probably be without. The views of the scenery are again stunning and watching the villagers in tiny mud huts busily making things or just resting from the sun gives a good feel for how life is for most people in Tanzania. We have to make do with it for entertainment all day. Even the people on the bus (we are the only Westerners) who are generally squashed in tighter than us (people are squatting in the aisles and a grandfather sits with two children on his lap so they share the seat) never show discomfort and always have patience whenever other people are trying to squeeze past. This is their way of life and the standard to which they’re accustomed. It is humbling as always to witness.
At about 1.30pm we stop for the first time to have lunch – what a relief – and have about 15 minutes to bolt down some takeaway fried chicken and chips and two cokes. Just stretching off is good. Then, slightly refreshed, we continue. Eventually, just after 7pm, a full 12 hours of sitting on this bus, we pull up in Dar Es Salaam’s new bus station, 13km out of town. The logic of this defeats me – surely it simply contributes to inner-city traffic congestion by boosting the number of taxis required to ferry people to and fro? Anyway, we get in a cab with a very well spoken young man and spend 7000 Ts on the pleasure of his company for twenty minutes.
The hotel we’ve chosen here – the Safari Inn is probably the nicest we’ve stayed in and its certainly the most expensive at just over £5 each. 8pm and a shower and bed are calling.

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