Dar Es Salaam

Jambo, Jambo!! That's hello here in Tanzania. Already our attempts at learning Swahili are paying off. We said goodbye to Mozambique and our less than stellar attempts at speaking Portuguese, and arrived in Dar es Salaam, the capital city. Swahili and English are the two official languages of the country. // We could instantly tell we were getting closer to the equator as the weather was hotter than our warmest days in Tofo. Driving from the airport to our hotel, you could easily tell the differences between these two capital cities. Dar had good roads, side walks and less trash piled on the side on the road - a clear contrast from Maputo. We actually never saw any trashcans in Maputo, and so it's not surprising that it ended up in the street. //. After a long and hot day of traveling, we decided to just stay at our hotel for dinner that night, which turned out to be a great choice. The food and outdoor garden atmosphere was good, but the highlight was the company. We sat at a table with two people from Johns Hopkins' public health program, and their local contact, a doctor from Tanzania joined us as well. Turned out the doctor was an infectious diseases specialist, as well as a fountain of knowledge and a good storyteller. He assured us that getting malarone (the malaria medicine) would not be a problem, and even gave us the name of a pharmacy that would be sure to have it. The next day we walked into a pharmacy and acquired the medicine, sealed with the Glaxo Smith Kline labeling, confirmed it had a good expiration date, and it was even cheaper than in the US. Betsy now has enough malarone and Hugh is back on Lariam, still disappointed with not having any psychotic dreams. Going back to the dinner from the night before, the two people from Hopkins were telling us stories of Baltimore's dangerous streets, as the topic of safety came up since we were in what is considered one of Africa's most dangerous cities. Apparently, according to them, the police have put up blue lights on telephone poles at the edges of the bad neighborhoods so that students, visitors, etc., don't accidentally walk the wrong way. One of them lamented that Google maps does not consider the blue lights when mapping out directions. //. We did not do much in Dar, as there was not very much to see. Since we only had plans to visit one tourist site, our first priority was mailing back some of our stuff that we no longer needed that took up a lot of space in our baggage, like our sleeping bags. Tanzania does have a national postal system, but like any good third world country, it was always the person at the other counter, which is easy to find just "over there", who would be able to help us. After 2 &1/2 hours of trying to buy a big enough box, having it inspected, sealed, wrapped in paper, then completely wrapping the box in packing tape, as we were instructed to do, the box was mailed. The woman at the post office said it would take one week to get to the US. We will be happy if it arrives at all. //. We visited the National Museum, which had some interesting fossils of early man and some history of the country. There was also a small memorial to the victims (who were Tanzanian) from the bombing of the US embassy by bin Laden, back in 1998. It was mostly wreckage, twisted bicycles, broken glass, etc., but conveyed the right emotion. No pictures of it, as photography in the museum cost extra, and we didn't pay. //. That night we had dinner at a restaurant that we found highly recommended on TripAdviser. It was an outdoor/sidewalk BBQ/Indian/Chinese restaurant called Mamboz. It was not a very clean place, but the food was great. The fires of the bbq were putting out flames several feet high and the smoke was tremendous - so happy we sat upwind. The staff were friendly, random strangers came over to us recommending ways to use the different condiments, other random strangers came to our table to sell us DVDs, magazines, hairbrushes, maps, hangers, pillows, etc.(the table was on the sidewalk), and we got to watch the Dar street scene- we were entertained and didn't have to pay for the show. And our stomachs still felt fine the next day! //. The next day we were off on a ferry to Zanzibar. It was only then that we started to use the camera again, as we had been a little skittish at having it in most places in Dar. Here is Dar from the ferry, and it does look kind of pretty from the sea.


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Location:Tanzania