After lots of planning and packing, I met Will in downtown Morogoro with "the list" of hotels and sights I had planned out for the weekend. I re-packed everything from the hostel so that I wouldn't have to pay for it while I was away for the weekend but, of course, I waited until the day-of to pack everything up. Like fitting everything but a weekend's worth of clothes into the not-so-large backpack, the bus stop was chaos. Before we even got out of the taxi people were trying to push us towards one bus or another. "Dar? Dar?" Luckily Will knew the way to the bus we wanted (Hood) and we paid TSh 5,000 (less than $5) and walked on. People were banging on the windows trying to get us to cashews, oranges, water, anything they could sell before the mzungus left. The bus ride was surprisingly short and the ventilation was great.
We arrived in Dar in the late afternoon and headed straight for our hotel (the Starlight). After sitting in the classic Dar traffic, we finally arrived at our hotel and settled in (read: checking out all the channels on the television and inspecting the bathroom). Then we walked around the market a block away. Located in the predominantly Muslim neighborhood, we found ourselves surrounded by jewelry shops but no markets; everything was closing when we got there around six. Will got some weird fruit that I can't remember the name of and we walked through a disgustingly smelly part of the market that almost made me gag. That was not on "the list." Let the adventure begin!
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