09 Feb: The Bus

Ayobu. His name is Ayobu. Whew. He and Todi pick us up at 8am and we go to change some money at the bank. $1=1270 shilling. Part of me wants to change $1000 just to hold a million of some paricular currency in my hands at once, but I settle. Unsuprisingly, I hadnt slept the night before despite a dose of Tylenol PM and Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue.' Ater a quick breakfast at the hotel, its off to the bus. The only thing I know about it is that its a nine hour ride to Iringa, and Ive seen some minibuses so packed with people I thought they might explode. Silently praying that these were not the vehicles we were taking, I exhaled for about five minutes when I was a nice big almost Greyhound-esque bus pull into the station. The scenery was amazing, but I'll do a better job of describing it on the way back, when I actually take some notes. On the bus I start cracking away at my first book of the trip, Next by Michael Crichton. Todi reads the summary and asks me about it, and I tell him how I like it because I studied genetics, which he also asked me to explain. Somehow I think my explanation of genetics may have gotten lost in translation. We arrive in Iringa in the early evening, and check into Hotel Isimila (sp?). For dinner we ate at the Hasty Tasty, a decision that just might haunt us for the rest of the trip. Unable to sleep, I watched The Score on my new iPod for the first time. We both brought our iPods. How else were we supposed to listen to Toto every day?

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