Trouble at the Safari Inn
Perhaps the most ridiculous story to come out of too-short time in Dar es Salaam was at the, in our minds anyway, infamous Safari Inn.
Arriving very late in Dar the next day after Makambako, the five of us were grumpy, hungry, sweaty, and all other things that come from being in a car and traffic for three hours more than you had originally intended. Of course this means that every hostel/inexpensive lodge we know was booked.
After getting in the city and trying to find a place for over 30 minutes we were getting pretty anxious. We park on a street and Stephen decides to try the Safari Inn Lodge we see up the road, while Robb and Molly check with the Jambo Inn on the other side.
Five minutes later Stephen comes back looking a little surprised and says “Um… well he said he had no rooms available, no singles, no doubles, nothing… but I had a feeling he was lying, so does someone else want to go try?” Robb and Molly give it a shot. Lowe and behold there are two double rooms wide open. Apparently Stephen has the crazy eye? Laugh number one.
We all walk back to Safari to check in, and the owner looks highly embarrassed to see Stephen. Laugh number two. Oh well. We all start to head up to the rooms until we here a “Wait, there are five of you.” We’re about to say yes, and concede to pay a bit extra to have a double room for three until he follows with “because if there are five of you I’m gonna do something.” Threats? No thank you. We run up to the rooms with a “oh she’s just helping us with our stuff” and try to figure out how to handle this, it apparently being the only available lodging in town.
Of course over the evening the threats only get worse. On our way back out he says he’s going to send his “night watchman” and if there’s three in a room he’s going to blah blah blah more ambiguous threats. He accosts us on the way in again (by this point we had planned a successful two in at a time procedure) this time at two in the morning. Crazy much?
Needless to say the next morning we booked it out of there. Still, good for some laughs right?
