The early bird...

...catches the fuckin' worm (*). I don't have a watch and most of the time this is fine while travelling in Africa. Appointments and meeting times are rather vague anyway, and people are seldom on time. But occasionally I do have to get up early to catch a bus. So I can rely on two things – my laptop or my camera. Both of course are not set for the right timezone. My computer runs on Eurotime, so is lagging two hours behind African time (two and half considering that I was told when a meeting is at 8 expect it to be at 8:30...). My camera is set to US Pacific time. Here things get a bit weird as it isn't adjusted for Daylight Savings. I never paid attention to it, but thought I had to add ten hours, when in reality it is eleven.

What's worse my already mediocre maths skills suffer even more at four in the morning. Needing to take the 6:30am bus back to Moshi I was hoping I would wake up in time. I had Plan B, which was the Aussie couple I met the evening before ( we had independently no luck at one hotel, which was full, then ended up in the same hotel; we then went out for dinner together). They agreed to knock at my door at 5:30. Well, as most often is the case with me when something important is to get up for I will wake up early and then can't go back to sleep. This time my internal alarm propelled me out of deep sleep at 4:00, or so I thought. I was lying awake for a while and got up at 5:15. Took my time to get ready wondering why the Aussies didn't knock and went downstairs at 5:45, right on time. I woke up the night receptionist, who had nodded off on his desk and asked him what time it was. He looked at me with tired eyes, apparently barely awake enough to notice that there was a person standing and that person had asked him a question. He eventually got his act together, looked at his cell phone (the standard watch in Tanzania) and said "4:45"

OUCH. I completely had miscalculated the time from the camera! And to top it off I could have made things much easier for myself, as right at 5:00 the dude was making it clear through the speakers that it's time to pray. When you get a hotel room in a muslim area make sure it's not next to a mosque, unless of course you have to get up early.

As for yesterday, not much was happening. I checked out of the Blue Oyster after another nice breakfast and walked to the street to wait for the bus. No watch required for that one, as it stops by when it pleases (well, when it's full...) After more than a half hour a bus came the other way, so I asked the driver when he'll be coming by for the return trip. The enlightening answer was "Later." I asked if that meant maybe 20 minutes, so he said "Yes." I am sure if I would have said half an hour or an hour he would have head the same answer...

So I went back to the hotel, knowing that they have a transport option. It is 10,000 instead of 2,000 shilling, but at least it is not as crowded. However, my hope it would be faster was dashed when they made several stops, going into the resorts and picking up more passengers. I saw my goal of reaching the noon ferry, for which I already had bought the ticket, vanishing. We finally got to the ferry terminal around 12:15, which I thought was still good as ferries also never leave quite on time. This one however, was already gone. Fortunately they told me my ticket was valid on the next ferry as well, which was leaving at 16:00. So I strolled through Stone Town's narrow alleyways one more time, had a mediocre lunch (never eat anywhere that Lonely Planet didn't mention...) and eventually made it back to the mainland.

The Australian couple are about halfway through a world tour, having visited places like France, Morocco (rock climbing!) and Zambia, with the rest of the journey still up in the open. Sounds nice!

After an uneventful bus ride I am now back in Moshi.

(*) Uh, of course another Springsteen reference, from "My best was never good enough"...