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Published: November 1st 2006
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Bus embellishments.
The decorations dont make me feel any better about the driving skills of our driver. Once again we offered thanks to the Swahili transport Gods for allowing us to arrive at our destination in one piece. Whilst maintaning a low level flight path our driver (pilot?) madly honked on his musical air horn at any vehicle, person or animal that dared venture into our path, whilst also managing to hit every pot hole between Moshi and Dar'. We seemed to spend as much time on the side of the road waiting for the bus to make repairs as what we did travelling. At the dodgy and still out of town Ubunga bus terminal we then displayed some of our proudest to date bargaining skills and negotiated a taxi fare from an extortianate 20000TSh down to a more respectable 8000TSh, even though we thought that price was still inflated. It never ceases to amaze us that we can spend all day on a bus and cover hundreds of kilometres and then for atleast the same price spend just ten minutes in a taxi. "But you see sir, fuel is expensive." Even though we have not met one traveller with anything good to say about Dar es Salaam, added to the fact that we didn't really do anything
in Dar', we quite enjoyed the four days and nights that we spent there. We had a whole assortment of housekeeping duties to keep us occupied and in the mean time enjoyed exploring the markets, the different ethnic and service quarters eg the mechanics quarters, sewing quarters, hardware quarters etc, not to mention the wide range of local cuisine we were able to sample from the street stalls. We took particular pleasure in indulging ourselves in some of the treats that in Africa are only available in The Big Smoke - pastries and coffee from a French Bakery, good internet and banking facilities, digital photo downloading and a wide range of toiletries and pharmacueticals. We stayed two nights each at Jambo and Safari Guest Houses and whilst we were able to swing ourselves a student discount at both, neither of them represented good value at 16000TSh per night. The manager of Jambo GH gave us a good insight as to what we should expect from our next destination, Zanzibar, after we told him of our frustrations that the majority of the ferry ticket vendors insisted on payment in US$. Not only would most of them not even accept shillings, those
that did used a ridiculous exchange rate. He told us that Zanzibar was twice as bad, thanks largely to it being a holiday destination as opposed to a travellers destination, and that if we didn't want to get continually ripped off, to stock up on dollars. We were beginning to wonder what country we were in. We bought our slow ferry tickets from him for $20 each. So far Dar' was the most heavily Islamic dominated place we had been to and it seemed that on every street corner there was a mosque, and that at all times we could hear atleast one of them "going off." The majority of the women were dressed in traditional Islamic attire and not only were they covered from head to toe in black, the narrow slit that revealed their eyes was even covered with a veil, giving them an almost scary persona and a very exotic feel to the city. Again, a preview as what to expect from Zanzibar. We understand that it is a choice and a dedication to maintain such a strict ritual, but our personal, and probably naive beliefs couldn't get past the thought that only a few people in
Mosque
Never had to look far - or listen for a mosque. the whole world ever got to see these ladies smile. For almost the entire time we were in Dar', it was blacked out and we could constantly hear the hum of generators that were powering the businesses. Every store in the hardware quarter had a range of generators on display and chained out the front, all of which were running to demonstrate their powers. Is it possible that Dars power supply was being exhausted by all the demo generators? The blackout made for one of our more interesting Kombe La Dunia viewings. The Casino was the only venue with power and we sat amongst the slot machines and Black Jack tables to watch Brazil beat Ghana 3-0. If ever anyone was going to pull off a heist in a Casino that was the time and place as every staff member had one eye on the match and whenever a goal was scored would abandon their station and run to the TV to watch the replay, leaving both the punters and tables unattended. The blackouts also made for romantic roadside dinners in the mechanics quarter where the stall holders used hurricane lamps to light the tables, adding to the petrol and
World wide web
Dear Mohammed... motor fumes that complimented the hum of the generators. By the time we set sail for Zanzibar we had accomplished everything that we needed to in Dar', as well as improving our night vision and enjoying ourselves in the process. More it seems, than any other traveller or guidebook would suggest.
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