On the road again

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After having a few days to ourselves, and in one location, at Livingstone, we were hitting the road again. Our destination was the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, on the edge of te Indian ocean. From there we would be heading to the island of Zanzibar. We left Livingstone by bus, heading firstly to the city of Lusaka. The trip is about 450km and is supposed to take about 6 hours by bus. However we had heard some horror stories of it taking 12 hours. We chose a bus line that was recommended by some people we met and got on the bus with fingers crossed. It actually turned out not too bad. We left Livingstone an hour late, but the seats were comfy and there were no animals on board. The bus was fairly modern and actually had air-conditioning, but the overhead vents were telling a different story. In contrast, the under seat heating system was working very well, and the temperature on the bus was kept nice and high as a result.

The landscape changed little as we headed along, but the roads were not too bad. The sun set as we were still apparently out in the bush, but then the glow of a big city appeared on the horizon. After 6 1/2 hours driving the bus pulled into the main bus station in the centre of Lusaka. Not bad, considering. Before the bus had even come to a stop, however, the hoards of taxi drivers had spotted our white faces in the window and were already calling out "Taxi! Taxi!" and tapping on the window to get our attention. Once we retrieved our bags from the belly of the bus we selected a driver at random who looked fairly reliable and who claimed to know where our hostel was, and off we went. He only got lost once on the way and we were soon dropping our bags on the floor of our room at Chachacha Backpackers and collapsing on the bed. We were able to get some toasted sandwiches from the kitchen just before the cook went home, and the internet access was nice and fast.

After a stifling night we woke with one plan in mind: to get first class tickets on the Tzara train to Dar es Salaam. This is supposed to be a 40 hour trip to the East Coast of Africa, including partly through a game reserve, but can quite often take longer. You can only buy tickets for the train in Lusaka or Dar, not over the internet or the phone, and there are no direct flights either.

When we arrived at the hostel the night before we had met an American girl, Ann, who had got 2nd class tickets the day before and said that we'd be lucky to get any tickets ourselves. But she said she'd be quite happy to travel together if we did manage to get on. We sat down to breakfast first, however, and were soon joined at the table by another couple. We said G'day and it turned out he was Aussie from Mt. Beauty (a mtb'r who was best mates with Joel Panozzo when growing up, for those who are interested) and she was a Kiwi. They had been in Europe for 3 years and were heading home the long way, through Africa. When we told them our plan for the train they exclaimed 'But Zambian Air have just started direct flights between Lusaka and Dar! We were on the first flight from Dar yesterday!' They convinced us to consider flying instead, even though we had been looking forward to the 'romance' of an African train journey.

We met up with Ann who was going to come to the ticket office with us and walked there. Once there we told the ticket man we wanted to book a whole first class compartment (4 seats) to ourselves. He consulted his hand written list of seats and the names alongside them and said that wasn't possible and we would have to take 2nd class tickets. Second class compartments are 6 seats and we couldn't buy a whole one. This would mean that I would be in a seperate carriage to Karen as men and women aren't allowed to sit together. Coupled with the fact that the train often breaks down for up to a day and passengers aren't allowed to leave the train when it does, and the romance suddenly went out of it and we decided to do the flights instead.

We said sorry to Ann and headed to the Zambian Air offices. After one false lead got us to the office block they vacated several months ago, we found their new office at the posh Hotel Intercontinental and booked our flights for the next day. Great!

We headed back to the hostel for some time out before heading into the city for a look around, and to find a camera store that might be able to fix my camera. First stop was a shopping plaza nearby that had a camera store that someone had told us might be able to help. It was a comprehensive little shop, but they couldn't help. They did re-direct us to another branch of theirs on the the main street in the centre of town. Before we headed in there, however, we took a pitstop at the familiarity of a Subway for lunch and browsed in a few bookstores to get some fresh reading material.

The taxi into the city took us past the suburb of Northmead, so we took some photos of course then dropped us off in the busy centre of town. Cairo Road is the main drag and we soon found the Phoenix Photos store we had been directed to. It had everything you could want in a camera store and was quite busy. We soon found the guy there who could help us. When we explained what had happened to my camera he said "No problem. I've fixed cameras like this before and can fix yours too." Great! Only problem was that he did the work out of work hours, as a private job, so I would have to leave my camera with him, and without the security of doing it through the shop. He said he could have it ready for the next day, but as we were leaving early he could drop it to our hostel that night. So with the 'Nothing risked, nothing gained' philosophy we gave him the camera and hoped to see him that night. After then burning some CD's of our photos we headed back onto the street for a look around.

Cairo Road was a busy area of town, with plenty of shops and offices as well as street vendors selling everything from shoes to bananas. We were offered plenty of the standard souveneirs but ended up buying some cool hand painted cards that the original artist was selling. It's good to find something new and unique when much of the stuff you see is all the same. We also saw some show homes on display as part of an affordable housing project and grabbed a snack at a local cafe. On the whole Lusaka was a nice enough city, although we did hear stories of tourists being mugged after dark.

Back to the hostel for us then and a bit of relaxing by the pool, emailing and reading. We had dinner there also and then I settled down with a book to wait for the camera repair man to show up. After 9pm I started to get a bit worried, but when I called him he said it was under control but was taking a bit longer. I was still nervous but at 11.30 he finally showed up with my camera, and IT WAS WORKING AGAIN! How cool is that! So, if you need any camera repairs and you're anywhere near Lusaka, head to Phoenix Photos on Cairo Road and ask for Prince. Everyone we've told this story to since has expressed disbelief that I gave my camera to someone and actually got it back, let alone repaired as well. But there you have it, there are some honest people out there.

The next morning was a fairly early start with a taxi to pick us up and take us to the airport. The airport was out of town a bit and when we got there it turned out to be the worlds quietest airport. When the taxi dropped us off, it was the only vehicle in the departures area. Anyway, we got checked in and although the flight ran 1 hour late leaving it was fine with great service.

We landed in Dar through a thick layer of cloud and on exiting the plane were greeted with cooler temperatures but higher humidity. We were going to stay with Tim and Ingrid Briscoe. Ingrid is the sister of a workmate of Karens, and her husband Tim is a pastor of a Vineyard church in Dar. They have lived there for a few years, and before that were missionaries on Mafia Island. We were a little apprehensive about staying with people we hadn't met before, but they immediately put us at ease. They are both very laid back and know the city well. Coupled with knowing fluent Swahili they were able to show us some of the city themselves and also organise taxis for us. On the Friday night we went to a local bar and restaurant owned by a lady from their church. Jackies Bar turned out to be a happening place and quite busy, but we got a table and had a great dinner of grilled beef skewers, BBQ'd chicken and 'chips myei' or chip omelette, washed down with local Tusker Beer. Great stuff.

The next day we caught a taxi to the Karioko market in the centre of town. This is a massive market that turned out to sell a lot of fresh produce as well as other diverse products. We spent our time wandering through taking in the diverse sights and exotic smells. We also ventured into the surrounding streets where I got a haircut and we dodged the chaotic traffic.

We caught a taxi back to the Briscoes in time for lunch before heading out to the house of some friends of theirs. This family is Finnish and the husband works for the power station to the north of the city. The station is run by a Finnish company for the Tanzanian government and all the Finnish staff live in a compound adjacent to the station. The drive there took us over some of the best and worst roads in Dar. Here you really do need a 4WD in the suburbs to negotiate some of the giant potholes and puddles. The compound turned out to have it's own tennis court, where we played volleyball, and, of course, a sauna. Apparently the Finns made the sauna a priority when they moved there, despite the high humidity there already! We finished off with a meal of BBQ ribs and chips. Another great night out.

Sunday morning saw us head to church with the Briscoes, which they have in the outdoor, thatched pagoda of a local Chinese restaurant. It was a fun service despite the rain and the noise of the generator providing reliable power. Despite the Finns power station, Dar has chronic power shortages and power is basically only on from 6pm to 6am, but this schedule can't be relied on. For lunch we went to the home of a couple from the church. He works as an accountant for the American Embassy, and the lunch they provided was great. Also at lunch was a young American female doctor who was doing a 6 month internship in Dar and other guests, one of who worked for an NGO helping locals develop more sustainable and better yield farming practices. Interesting.

The afternoon saw us emailing and catching up with some news from home online, until the power abruptly cut out just before we prepared dinner. So we had a romantic candle lit meal before an early night in preparation for our early start for the ferry to Zanzibar in the morning.

So we had a very 'ex-pat' experience in Dar, but still got a look at a lot of the city and life there, from the markets to the 'Finnish Compound'. An interesting place, but time to move on, to exotic Zanzibar.

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