Monday, August 8, 2011

Tanzania 2011, Day 3

It was another day of travel, this time all on land, from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. Without any stops or major delays the trip can be as short as 6 hours & our trip today wasn't much over that. In some ways the drive was almost leisurely! Partly this was because today is some sort of national holiday in Tanzania so the traffic was unusually light. And partly because our driver, Vincent, has some sort of professional driving designation and even when hitting speeds of 150 kph on the straight stretches we didn't feel the same adrenalin overload. Then too, we're just more accustomed to Tanzanian road life this time & less likely to panic when passing a long transport truck on a hill while narrowly squeezing back into our lane between an oncoming bus & an old man pedalling a bicycle loaded with sticks.

So we arrived safely in Dodoma around 3:30 pm, & are glad to be back. After the sticky damp heat of Dar, Dodoma feels cool & dry. The day temperature should be around 23 all week & tonight it's even a bit on the cool side. Mercifully, the air is dry enough to actually DRY things, unlike Dar where no matter how early you hang up your freshly laundered undies, they are still a bit damp by morning.

We had been booked into the St. Gaspar convention centre, a rather nice place outside of town. However, we were able to get our reservations switched to the New Dodoma hotel, the same place we stayed for most of our visit last year. The New Dodoma is not terribly fancy but it's strategically located across from the railway station & pretty much right downtown so we have somewhere to walk after work without feeling too isolated from what's going on. So the first thing we did after dumping our suitcases was to find our way to the market & wander around for an hour or so, getting pleasantly lost until a friendly young lady led us back to the main street.

One very pleasant addition to the hotel facilities this year is wifi! For only 5000 Tanzanian shillings per day (about $3 Canadian) we can have internet access anywhere in the hotel area all day. It should let me connect more easily, as long as the work schedule permits.

Speaking of work, I still have materials to prepare for tomorrow. This will be challenging because I am feeling sleepy & I am only an armlength away from my bed, ready with the mosquito net pulled down & looking very enticing.

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