Dar

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The train journey was fun. We shared a first class cabin with the Dutch couple and sat eating our dinner together in the dining car at sunset. The next morning we got up and watched some giraffes and baboons as the train went through a national park. It was a pleasant journey except for the obligatory stop at 1am for all the locals on the train and at a station to shout loudly and move around lots.
Dar es Salaam has quite a lot of mosques and muslims as well as places to eat out and has been great so far. We went to a large craft market today and saw lots of nice stuff and got a ticket to Arusha for the day after tomorow. Tomorrow we are planning to go to the beach for a day. In Arusha we plan to do a three day safari to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater which are reputedly amazing. After that plans are to head to Uganda and see some Gorillaz before jumping on a plane to the UK.
I expect to spend quite a lot of the summer in Cambridge, UK before heading back to the US to live back in Boulder and get a job again... I wonder how that will be.
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I did stay a few nice days in Dar Es Salaam and it was cool. It was nice to be in a city where you could get ice cream and watch the world go by without causing a stir. It was much more cosmopolitan than anywhere we had been for a while and had a very strong Muslim presence. We had good food and went to the beach one day. The sea was a lovely turquoise and the sand fine and soft. It was cool to watch the camels walking by as we soaked up the sun.
We did a little shopping also in Dar as we were not sure what the opportunities would be like in Uganda - our last stop in Africa. The tourist information in Dar were amazingly helpful and told us how to get to a lovely craft market by local bus. The bus system in Dar was also great - all the buses very clearly labeled on the side with where they were going to and from. The craft market was great - lots of very cheap wood carvings, some nice stone carvings and good artwork. Everyone in the market greeted us with cries of "Jambo" (Hello) "Mambo" (How are you?) and "Caribu" (Welcome). English speaking wasn't that common in Tanzania, but everyone spoke Swahili.

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