An amazing Day in Dar

In this post: First day impressions; Bongoyo island

It turns out that Dar is a beautiful city in the daylight, though perhaps not in the traditional North American sense. It has a certain appeal that I find incredibly intriguing. Many of its buildings look run-down, with dirty walls and flaking paint. Every available piece of useable space on, in or around a building seems like it is being used to sell something. But buildings do not a city make, and its really the people that make this a special experience. The hustle and bustle of people going about their business is impressive. I would liken it to the busy 5 minutes between classes on a university campus, or Walmart on Boxing day (yeah, I know, I judge myself too). The difference is that this mix of humanity is not limited by class times or door-crashers. Oh, and the endless stream of fuming, noisy cars, trucks and heavily laden motorbikes make crossing the street a precarious game of Frogger. Gotta keep the head on a swivel walking around this city.

The people seem friendly, and I haven’t gotten as many out-right stares as I expected, but almost everyone on the street seems to have something to sell you, so we get a lot of attention for just being Mzungu (Swahili for “European”, or “white”). Some are pretty persistent in approaching you and trying to use small talk and a few jokes before pulling out paintings or leading you into their shop. All fairly harmless as long as you politely make it clear that you aren’t interested in the pink or the green loufa they’re hawking (perhaps the weirdest thing I saw today). There are also those unlucky few who have to resort to begging: men with amputated legs or crippled from polio, walking on their hands to knock on a taxi window for spare change. The disparity is great, but the city is vibrant and energetic.

You’ll be happy to learn that call to prayer didn’t actually blare through our windows today, which was particularly fortunate because I was sleeping like a baby after all that travel. I nixed (sp?) the jogging idea after having glanced out our 5th floor hotel room to be confronted with all of the above. Perhaps another day once I am more familiar with the city. Plus, the potholes in the sidewalks alone are enough to make a stoic runner think twice (we have a couple of those in the group: they still ran though). Our morning was spent sorting out some logistics (friendly tip: don’t travel to Africa with chips in your debit or credit cards… it’s proving a bit of a headache to access money) and then we travelled to Bongoyo Island for the afternoon, which is about 7 km north of the city by boat. Gorgeous beach, beautiful warm water and plenty of wildlife around for me to play with. The snorkelling wasn’t amazing though: only a single stand of brain coral with a dozen or so fish. Lunch there consisted of a whole BBQ’d fish, which was very tasty and I had fun playing with the skeletons afterwards (and maybe during). The weather was beautiful all day, despite seeing a little twister a couple kilometres away that was clearly whipping up the water where it touched down.

All in all, an amazing first day in Dar!

It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the weekend, so I might have time to sort out the pictures of some of the things I’ve been talking in the blog.

Tutaonana baadaye!