Time: 9 hours
Cost: 25,000 Shillings
Companies: Kilimanjaro
Most buses leave Dar Es Salaam for Arusha from the Ubungo Road station which is what should be a short drive out of town. The reality is that the traffic on this road is unbelievably bad so you’ll need to give yourself lot of time to get out there. Give yourself at least an hour to get to the station from the centre of town and even longer if it’s rush hour. Although, to be honest, it always seems to be rush hour on this road.
When you finally arrive at the station you’ll be accosted by ticket touts. They’re annoying and aggressive and you’ll want to run away from them but they’ll follow you. It might just be easier to give in and be led by one of them at first as the different bus companies are all in the same area. I opted to ditch the ticket tout guys and to speak with each bus company myself. This resulted in pushing and shoving between a ticket tout who had been following me and the guy at the first bus stall I went to. It
The tickets are sold outside the station and it would be advisable to buy it in advance by a day. All of the express buses to Arusha are sold in the same spot for the same price of 25,000 Shillings. Cheaper buses exist but they’ll stop plenty of times along the route and the buses aren’t nearly as nice. The journey is nine hours so there’s no point messing around with the local buses unless you’re really, really strapped for cash.
I had heard good things about the Kilimanjaro bus company so I went with them. It was actually a great experience and they even served drinks and snacks on board. The seats were spacious and the bus was modern. The driver went super fast but this seems to be standard in Tanzania and at least the road was good. There’s a short 15 minute meal break and most people, including me, took a meal to eat on the bus which was really tasty.
The ticket buying experience aside, this will be one of the better bus experiences in Tanzania. Don’t get used to it, though! There are plenty of shitty buses and terrible roads out there if your plan is to venture further around the country.
