Yesterday was a very very long day.
The bus arrived in Dar es Salaam around 6:30am (almost an hour earlier than scheduled which was unbelievable!). I turned into a bit of an American tourist with all the people trying to get me to take their taxi. Normally I have enough energy to joke around with them, but after barely any sleep I was just waving drivers away and even having to push them off from trying to grab my luggage and lead me to their vehicle. I was told to use an app called Bolt to order rides and it went well. Just like uber, but I paid in cash at the end of the ride.
I got to the airport with 11 hours to spare. At first I really wanted to sleep. I found out there weren’t many comfortable places for that and for the first three hours I sat just people watching. Eventually exhaustion caught up with me, my eyelids somehow fluttered closed, and then it was a few hours later. I ate some food, did a small touch of work, and then it was on to the flight.
I was so glad to remember that I was given a free hotel room at Hamad Airport, so on arriving I was essentially running to go to sleep. I’m sad I didn’t get to explore more because this airport is very impressive and seems like you could spend all day getting lost with walking around.
I slept very well and was so so happy to take a nice warm shower. I know my normal travel style isn’t this “luxury”, so I made sure to enjoy every little inch of that bed. Today I woke up and went straight to the boarding gate, where I’m sitting right now, waiting for my second to last flight!