4:45am: alarm goes off
5:30am: in a taxi to Dar Es Salaam's Ubungo bus terminal
5:55am: help a jet lagged and overwhelmed German couple find their bus company
6:05am: buses bolt out of the station like lightning and almost run over a young girl. Passersby chastise the girl
6:15am: find my bus company to take me to the bus as its far too hectic to figure out which bus is mine
6:30am: things being sold through the bus windows: loaves of white bread, perfumes, sunglasses, newspapers, gum, water, wallets, self help and how to books, and lanyard name tags
6:47am: bus departs to Mbeya. The trip should take 12-14 hours
8:00am: snack
9:00am: stare out the window
10:30am: stop at a collection of stalls so passengers can buy food and use the bathroom
11:30pm: drive through Mikumi National Park where I spot giraffe, buffalo, dik diks, antelope, vultures, and I think maybe an elephant
1:00pm: Pole pole. This bus seems to have two speeds: slow and slower. It is tedious and there are plenty of hills yet to come
1:30pm: pick up speed going downhill. Rear end car in front of us. Fortunately everyone is ok though the car's rear windshield is completely shattered. The car and bus drive an hour to the nearest police station where we wait an hour for paperwork to be completed before we resume our slow drive
4:00pm: lunch at a rest stop. I have an omelet which is pretty good so I decide to get a second omelet to go. If you are looking for a challenge, I cannot recommend enough eating an omelet out of a paper bag
5:40pm: arrive in Iringa which is 5-6 hours away from our final destination
6:30pm: sunset
6:45pm: total darkness. Roads in Tanzania don't have lights
7:00pm: the paved road ends and now we are on dirt roads
9:00pm: we are still hours from Mbeya. I try to nap
10:00pm: our bus is still excruciatingly slow and another bus from the same company is now pacing us in case we break down. They announce we can move to the other bus if we like as it is less crowded. My seatmate, a foreigner who I'd known before today's tedious bus ride and had planned to take me to a good hotel he knew because he grew up in Mbeya, switches to the other bus. He assures me the two buses will arrive in Mbeya simultaneously. I don't believe it for a second but I stay on the original bus because my backpack is in the hold underneath and I tell myself he will wait for me if he arrives first.
11:52pm: arrive Mbeya, just over 17 hours after departing Dar. I am tired but happy to be off the bus. Even better, I see the second bus pull up almost immediately so I join the crowd to retrieve my backpack.
12:10am: I can't find my travel companion
12:20am: I find a kind woman who speaks English and she asks the second bus's conductor in Swahili where my travel companion is. The conductor says the guy got off the bus twenty kilometers before Mbeya.
12:25am: the really nice English speaking woman lets me borrow her cell phone so I can call my travel companion. No answer. I am on my own.
12:30am: weigh my options. I do have a guide book but it is in digital format and it doesn't seem like a good idea to take out my iPad so I don't know the name of any hotels. Anyway, the only taxi drivers left by now are sketchy and I don't feel comfortable getting into a car with any of them and just saying to take me to a hotel. Best course of action is to stick with this nice English speaking Tanzanian woman and her friend.
12:40am: a few doors over from the bus ticket office is a dodgy looking hotel called the Ten Commandments Inn. There is no room at the inn. We resign ourselves to spending the night at the outdoors bus station. The best spot is right in front of the bus ticket office because the lights are on and there are employees present, but the area is already overflowing with people and luggage.
12:45am: the three of us are utterly exhausted from the bus ride and at the prospect of sitting outside in the cold night. We all burst out laughing and that releases some tension we've been feeling.
12:50am: we pick a spot that is partially illuminated and has a ledge to sit on. I wrap myself in my sarong and huddle over backpack and try both to sleep and not to sleep.
Somehow, the hours pass. People talk, babies cry, the occasional radio plays. It's a cold night. I don't sleep.
5:40am: my new friends have a 6am bus connection so they try to figure out what to do with me as the sun isn't up yet and they don't want to leave me alone.
5:45am: they decide to get me a cab that has just dropped someone off, thereby avoiding the sketchy drivers. They tell the cabbie what hotel to take me to. I thank the women profusely. I don't think I was ever in any real danger, but bus stations in the middle of the night aren't safe places no matter where you are in the world, especially when you don't speak the language and everyone had noticed me as the only foreigner there, which didn't help me feel at ease. It made all the difference in the world to know they were looking out for me, even if my supposed travel companion had decided to abandon me without warning.
5:46am: I get in the cab to go to the hotel. The cab drives maybe two hundred meters! I feel stupid for having been so close to a hotel all night long but, in my defense, it wasn't visible from the bus station and it still would have been a sketchy walk in the dark with my big backpack.
5:47am: the hotel is full. I have been awake for about 25 consecutive hours now so I just collapse in the lobby and prepare to fall asleep.
5:48am: the receptionist takes pity on me and says I can take a room that was vacated just 20 minutes ago but it hasn't been made up yet. This is the best news all day!
5:49am: I brush my teeth, dig out my sleep sheet from my backpack and get into my own sheet and fall asleep in seconds!