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Dar Es Salaam
Sittin' on the dock of the bay. Locals cleaning fish down by the fish market. Dar Es Salaam (Haven of Peace) turned out to be more of a Haven for errands, food, Internet, comfortable beds and cold beer. Arriving late Canada day and enduring a long bus ride fraught with bumps, traffic and bad stomach problems from the chipsi mayai. Chipsi mayai is a dish that amounts to basically a pile of fries in a pot with a few eggs cracked into it until you get an omletteish type dish. I really enjoyed it the first time, but then caving to buy one from a roadside vendor on the way north I quickly realized there was a big difference in quality and my body has been in pain ever since. Thankfully my morning diet of several mangoes and half a bunch of bananas has helped quell things to some degree.
We had a fairly quiet Canada day, once we got into town and fought with our cab driver over a fair price we simply needed to eat. The restaurant we found was great with all kinds of delights from different schools of food it was hard to decide after our weeks of limited options. I simply ordered two meals and let me body sort out
Fish Market
Good thing I love fish! the rest (much to its disapproval). We also learned that because of all the Muslims here, they don't sell booze at this particular restaurant. I was offended. Canada day and no beer? Thankfully we found a shady operation around the corner that I was at first downright scared to enter. Once we got the guys to go inside the dark hallway that claimed to be a bar turned out O.K. They closed at 11 which was bad but at that point we had seen the rats and decided it would be alright after all just to leave. Huge rats. HUGE.
We slept like angels that night although I woke with swarms of mosquitoes in the middle of an airborne raid on my body and managed to fight my mosquito net down with only minor casualties. What seemed like 15 minutes later we woke up to hear the call to prayer from the mosque about 100m away. Apparently they turn the speakers on around 4:30am every morning to get people to show up. No wonder they need to coax them, 4:30am is damn early. We had all kinds of errands to run here so mainly we wandered about trying to
Kris & Jason
Would you have guessed it was a booze cruise? find this and that. It was Sunday so I didn't have much luck under I wandered into this hole in the wall shop run by who I am pretty sure is the oldest human on earth, a Pakistani fellow who looks like he probably discovered Africa. He sent me on my way with toilette paper, water, tape, a lighter, pens and Q tips. Not sure why or how he had everything on my shopping list... but he did!
More breakfast, more lunch at chefs pride, naps and fruit occupied most of my time with the addition of an exciting trip to the fish market down on the water. The sludge-like liquid protein culture on the floor was a bit unwanted but the exciting array of scaled sea-beasts littering the counters more than made up for it. I've never seen fish like these before so I'm assuming they're only myths to the western world.
Ryan and I had a few lazy days as well, watching the horrific outcome of Italy advancing to the final on t.v. along with more delicious meals at Chefs Pride (the local hotspot for food). I guess it was Wednesday afternoon when I was laying
Sunset
Another shot of my beloved Indian Ocean from Zanzibar! in bed regretting a past meal when low and behold, hot shot Kris Penner from Chilliwack B.C. appeared on our doorstep. For those of you who don't know, I went to BCIT with Kris and later worked with him for several months until he moved to Australia to take up work and travel there. Arrangements were made and he decided to meet us in Tanzania and we've now been travelling together for a few days. Once we gave him a quick overview of Dar Es Salaam (basically just the mosque behind our hotel) we had some beers and caught up. The next day we continued onto Zanzibar island, opting to take the ferry after hearing that the cargo ship we lined up "often doesn't get there in the same day" whatever that means. We spent less than 24 hours in Stone Town, which is a popular section of Zanzibar Town with lots of character. We took off again the very next day to head for some beach time up north before returning back to Stone Town tomorrow to meet Jordan, Georgina and Maurice.
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Aunt Pat
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A book in the making???
Hey Jason! Your travel blog is so great. We all enjoy reading it, and promise me that you will write a book on your travel adventures. It will be a best seller!!!!