Blogs from Africa - page 3211

How we do it We started out by heading to the Tourist office, not too useful, and then we saw a sign for a FRENCH Restaurant and that meant COFFEE!!! REAL COFFEE! We invited ourselves to sit with a couple our age, she is Hawaiian and he is from northern California. They had just spent about four days in Zanzibar at the fairly new and fairly good AFrican music festival: Doreen and David. Within minutes, I had my notebook out taking notes; where to listen to music practice (not on weekends, unfortunately), where to eat but not where to stay. Then, Doreen mentioned that they were thinking about the wood carvers market, about which we were totally unaware. However, I asked if they would like to share a taxi there, they would, so off we set! ... read more

On the overnight train from Nairobi to Mombasa, we felt as if we’d stepped back to the days of British colonialism—black waiters in pristine white uniforms serving three-course meals to a car full of European travelers, while hundreds of Africans fought for elbow room on the crowded benches of third class. Supposedly the train once even featured a seat in the front from which men in khaki safari suits could shoot at passing game. But this time around, perhaps in a small belated act of retribution, the resources being plundered were our own: one of Randy’s bags was stolen out of our bunk while we were at breakfast. There was nothing of terrible importance—calculator, headlamp, rain poncho, among a dozen other practical things—and maybe the new owners will put them to better use. The coast of ... read more

i bought a new bed 30 centimeters of pure latex for 40,000 cfa which at first sounded like a great deal to me, but then reflecting back in dollars, that's 80 bucks, and there ain't no pillow top on this thing. . . but oddly enough it is riddled with sailing images, a couple of tall ships some compass roses and a married couple floating indescribably amongst it all, and all in hunter orange and aqua marine wow it came from katako market on the head of a guy who walked it too my place. i don't know how to describe how far away it is, over the bridge, past the stadium taking a left at round point ENA and down the street to my place, it's not incredibly long but it's a ways his final ... read more

Loshoto to Dar Es Salaam - Thursday After a greasy omelet breakfast we left St. Benedicts to catch a bus to Mombo. We had heard that we could take a dalla dalla (Toyota van) to Mombo for 1,000 TSh (about 90¢) then catch an express bus to Dar. We found one near the front of the queue and hopped in. We knew that the dalla dalla wouldn’t leave until it filled up so after ten minutes or so of waiting Marie hopped out and started soliciting fares. Mombo, Mombo! she would shout, gesturing her arms toward the van. The driver, conductor and two assistant conductors howled in laughter, but they egged her on. Soon we had our load … ten fares and four busmen, so off we went. About 300 yards from the bus depot ... read more

The Germans had been giving us very good money-saving advice, but this last advice wasn’t so good. We had planned on leaving at 6 a.m. or so and taking the TSC 6000 (Tanzanian shillings, about $6) bus from Lushoto to Dar es Salaam. However, they seemed to think that this would take 9 excruciating hours, stopping every village or so, so they had heard that it would be better to take a dalla-dallas(Toyota minivan) down the mountain to Mambo, and then get a luxury, express bus that would take only 4 hours, non-stop. So, we got to the bus area about 8:15, and it took about an hour to find enough people to fill up the dalla-dallas…I even got out and became a hawker, trying to talk people into coming with us. Everyone laughed! It took ... read more