Tanzania Part II – Dar Es Salaam the “Rest Stop" of Vacation

Classic Dar

My first impression of Dar Es Salaam (which means Haven of Peace), the capital of Tanzania, came at 3:30am as Mel and I groggily exited our bus somewhere in the city.  There were cab drivers waiting outside the bus and as soon as I walked off they pounced on me yelling “Cab! Taxi! Hotel!”  Being the fantastic planners that we are we hadn’t booked any reservations for lodging and needed a moment to gather our thoughts.  Unfortunately, it was late and we were not in a particularly nice looking part of the city (though later I saw that probably a majority of the city isn’t particularly nice looking).  We half ran away from the onslaught of potential rides and found a dry part of sidewalk under a light and looked at the travel information we’d brought on Dar and identified 3 cheap hotels that were supposed to be near each other.  We found a cab driver that knew the places and off we went.  I was nearly blind with exhaustion.  Even though I’d done nothing but sit on a bus for basically the past 33 hours all of my senses were off kilter and I knew nothing about this new country and city, especially the language, Swahili.  The first place we stopped at was full.  We went to another place around the corner and after knocking for a bit, a sleeping desk clerk woke up and unlocked the doors to give us the same response, “no space.”  Mel and I looked at each other, we didn’t even have enough Tanzanian Schilling on us to pay the cab driver to take us anywhere else if the next place didn’t work out.  We went down a back alleyway to the Safari Inn.  Another sleeping desk clerk raised himself from a couch and came.  Desperate I made a small lie, telling him we’d called earlier about a room.  He couldn’t find a record of the message (because there was none), but said he had space.  Without even looking at the price we gratefully accepted and thankfully found a place to rest.

Obligatory Pepsi Promo, Tanzanian Tag Line "Dare For More" -  I like it.

The next day we had a couple of errands to run to be ready for Kilimanjaro.  Hasmin, the third member of our Kili group would be arriving from Lesoto at around 7pm at the airport.  The first thing we did was take out money and then we wandered around the area of our hotel and found a booking office for buses to Moshi, where we’d be staying for Kilimanjaro.  Soon we were covered in sweat.  That is one thing you realize immediately about Dar, a port city, this time of the year; it is humid, like Houston, Texas humid.  The air was thick and it was raining off and on the entire time we were there.  Then we found an internet cafe and saw the email from the Kilimanjaro Tour Company finally telling us the packing list and itinerary and we'd be staying (needless to say the email would've been more helpful 5 days before).  We decided to walk around to try and see the water, but instead we just walked in the completely wrong direction for about an hour.

One of the flooded neighborhoods that we saw

On the walk we did see some of the devastating effects of the recent flooding with entire neighborhoods under water and a river that had clearly overflown its banks as fallen trees and more flooding showed.  Later on the walk a man approached followed by a couple kids holding a clear, plastic juice bottle which inside housed a black snack.  “Black mamba” the man said as he thrust the package in our direction.  Mel screamed and jumped back while I tried to get a closer look.  I don’t think I’ll ever know whether it was actually a Black Mamba, but if anyone can tell from the photo please comment or let me know.  Eventually we realized our folly and turned around.  When we finally reached the water we got information on the ferry times and prices to Zanzibar since we planned to taking one after our Kilimanjaro trek (this of course would not end up working out).  It was after this that I probably experienced my first real “vacation.”  We had looked up movie times for a movie theatre earlier and since there are no movie theatres or malls or really anything in Lilongwe we were both pretty excited about this.

Black Mamba? You decide.

We got a cab to the mall, but Dar also has very bad traffic and we missed the showing of Sherlock Holmes we’d been shooting for.  Luckily we were in an air-conditioned oasis of retail stores and restaurants.  After walking around we both agreed what we needed was a good old-fashioned unhealthy fast food fix.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that the first bite of that hamburger was maybe the best bite of food I’ve ever had in my life.  The exhaustion from the travel, the home-sickness, the diet of stale peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and street vendor food washed away in a beautiful wave of mayo/ketchup soaked cheese burger.  It was heaven.  I washed the bite down with a sensational gulp of fountain Pepsi, that’s right Pepsi because Tanzania is apparently a huge Pepsi country since it’s EVERYWHERE.  After this I also got a doughnut.  My stomach was full of food that tasted like America.  It was glorious.

Jumbo Burger - I <3 U

The proper way to eat a doughnut.

After the movie we met Hasmin at the hotel and after relaxing for a bit we all went out to see what was going on, on a week night which was basically nothing around our area.  There was a local Casino so we just went there and sat at the bar watching a soccer match and swapping Africa stories.

Overflowing river from the rain, it would lead to a big delay in our travel plans to Moshi

The next morning we woke up early to go to Ubungu bus station on the far side of town.  It was raining hard and had been all night.  We could already see some streets were flooding in our area and as we drove to the bus station we much more.  At the station we learned that part of a bridge that is used by many of the buses on their way out of Dar had collapsed and so there were heavy delays.  Our bus hadn’t yet arrived because of the backups and we were instructed to wait on a curb, exposed to the torrential downpours.  Two of the entrances to the bus station had already flooded and so there were tons of congestion.  Eventually though it arrived and we were on our way out of Dar on to the next part of the adventure, Kilimanjaro.