Dodoma, the capital?


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Africa » Tanzania » Centre » Dodoma
December 8th 2011
Published: December 8th 2011
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Dodoma, well not a great say about this place, quite, relaxed and a place to go if your hoping to get away from haste ling tourist touts.

Dodoma is a small town in the geographic center of Tanzania and is the biggest for the area. It is the official capital of Tanzania, although Dar es Salaam remains the economic and political centre of the country. Many tourists are getting confused when they get to know that Dodoma is a capital city since Dar es Salaam is the biggest city in the country.

It is a calm and harmonic town surrounded by rural areas and amazing landscapes. There are massive stones standing on each other, and you can wonder how come?! This town is in middle of nowhere in dry deserts and it is explains why Dodoma is not really crowded and non-touristic.

We arrived from Kigoma in middle of night and needed to find an accommodation. Of course we were a little worried to walk in the streets with our backpacks in the darkness but surprisingly people were really helpful to help find a safe place to stay over the night. Africans in Dodoma treat you like one of them and don’t try to rip you off either which has been a strange feeling for once don’t argue about the price. Usually we avoiding walk through the market streets because many sellers will try to sell you all kind of stuff, doesn’t matter if you need it or not (like alive chicken or a chair). Since it is non-touristic place and they don’t relying on tourism, and our road through these areas are easier.

It has been a pleasure (since we are getting the fix price of grocery) to walk through food market and buy a lot of mangoes, bananas, oranges, pineapples, passion fruits and all kind of vegetables. We are becoming spoilt with fresh and extreme cheap fruits, and maybe it is a little unhealthy to overdose the amount of fruits every day. Our day begins with fruit breakfast and vegetables, and fruits for lunch/dinner and we cannot get enough of it.

As well all touristic souvenirs are half the price than in Dar es Salaam or Arusha (the touristic areas of Tanzania and Africa) and if you are taking this uncommon and unseen road so it is worth to stopover a night or two in Dodoma.

The streets of the town is really clean and we felt the Christmas in the air since the fire trees (Christmas trees) are flowering fully and the streets are colored by red. The weather is absolute boiling in the town and you have to be careful with it since you can be burned indirectly (by wind).

Otherwise is not a big deal to do in this small capital city. Of course some churches, mosques, government building, town hall etc are worth to visit if you have time.


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