Good Bye Kigali, Transit Dar-es-saalam

Left the hotel for the airport at 6:00 am. Security at the airport was quite impressive. We had to exit the car, offload the bags for a dog to sniff out, pass through metal detectors before loading the bag back into the car and driving to the drop off zone.

Not much crowd at the airport. Went to an eatery within the departure lounge to have breakfast of orange cake and water. A Cameroonian lady walked over to my table and asked if she could share it. We got talking and I discovered she used to work for Shell downstream in Cameroon, had lots of interesting discussions on Africa. Left for the departure gate at 8:00am, had to pass through security scanning again. The departure area after the security scanner is isolated from the duty free shops.

Flight left on schedule and after 1hr 30 mins we landed at Kilimanjaro airport, in Tanzania for some passengers to disembark. No new passenger boarded. After 30 mins the flight continued reaching Dar-es-salaam in about 1hr.

Unlike at Kigali Airport we were given Visa forms to fill at Dar-es-salaam airport after which an immigration officer checks and directs you to a desk for finger printing and then onto another desk where an immigration officer would specify the type of visa you should be granted and amount to pay, after payment at the cashier’s counter we had to wait for about 30mins before the passport was returned with an entry stamp in it. I requested why the real visa wasn’t fixed instead since I was going to Zanzibar, but I was told the stamp is acceptable.

After picking up my bag I headed for the domestic wing to check into my Zanzibar flight only to discover that a flight would be leaving within the next 1hr 30 mins and I would have to wait 4 hrs for mine. I decided to change to the earlier flight and had to pay a change fee of $38.Read more