A Renovated Dar es Salaam Street
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I slept soundly, the first proper sleep in 40 hours. Once I'd enjoyed a lukewarm shower, I was set up for the day. The view outside my window revealed a concrete world, seemingly devoid of all planning, and bristling with a veritable jungle of aerials and masts. None of the colour and razzmatazz of the street life was visible from my perch.
Breakfast wasn't a complicated affair: a selection of fruit, a wide variety of Indian food, hot and cold drinks plus biscuits. A small stove stood on a surface, on which stood a little frying pan. A huge bowl of eggs stood next to it. Behind these stood a jovial wee chap beaming proudly from under his crooked chef's hat. "Would you like some eggs? Boiled, fried, scrambled or omelette?" he asked, desperately hoping I would make his day. I obliged him and opted for scrambled eggs on toast. Immediately another chap, who resembled the height disadvantaged fellow off one of the Bond films, took it upon himself to make the toast. Yet another bloke delivered the serviettes. Just as in the bar the previous evening, there was a large surplus of staff in the breakfast room, all with their minute niche. They were a delightful bunch, all with friendly, ready smiles, and all were over the moon that I made an effort to try and communicate in Swahili with them; I got the impression it was a novelty.
Coconuts for Sale
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We soon checked out, leaving our luggage at the hotel while we explored a little more of the city before leaving for the airport. Within a few minutes, Dan found a problem with his camera; the zoom lens was permanently extended out of the camera, rendering the device impractical. A quick check in some camera shops revealed it could not be fixed, or more likely it would cost more to fix than the camera was worth anyway. The poor lad was hopping mad, but knew he had to bite the bullet and buy another camera, preferably before the imminent safari. It was a pain, but at the same time he was fortunate that the failure occurred in the city where the problem could be overcome. In Moshi, and certainly on safari, there would be no chance of replacing the apparatus.
We found our way down to the waterfront again, and even managed to find a way through the wire fence and rubbish onto the beach. As I was taking a series of photos from the beach, a young, unkempt fellow approached, and menacingly in broken English, told me that I had caused great offence by trespassing on his private beach. He turned and referred me to an old man in rags who was shuffling towards us. "He is the commander of the beach," the young man told me. Vagabonds or fishermen trying to rip me off, I thought, and I hastily made my way back to street level, pushing past the young hopeful who tried to block my way.
Dan and I headed off in the direction of the fish market, soon accompanied by a new "friend" tagging along. However, time was pressing, the traffic was horrendous, so we took the decision to grab a cab to the airport, getting the cabbie to call at our hotel first to collect our luggage. This seemed like a logical move, which soon started to stutter when we realised that our driver didn't really know how to get to our hotel. It took him a succession of stops for directions before he could locate it. The Calcutta like traffic also helped conspire against us. Dan and I were by now silently cursing. We finally we got to our hotel, and picked up our kit. Dan's had a mysterious white powder coating, which the hotel porter explained was from a cleaning powder. Crumbs, is there potential for us being nabbed for drug smuggling now?
Shawls and Kummahs for Sale
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Traffic to the airport was busy, to say the least. We overtook busses brimming with people - standing room only. People congregated on the side of the road, silently waiting to take their gamble with death as they quickly sprinted across to the other side, dodging traffic as they did so. The traffic lights seemed to operate on a different code here; red didn't appear to mean stop! At times we crawled along at a snail pace. Cyclists passed along inside us, miraculously balancing all manner of goods on their machines. One young lad was bent double pushing his old, black, sit-up-and-beg bike up the slight incline. Attached to his machine was a small trailer, on which he had two huge oil barrels, obviously full to capacity. It was a back breaking exercise, and I was amazed at how his spindly arms and legs could handle this, but if it was a choice of undertake this task or starve, there was only one option. But he had an air of nobility about him; far better this than begging like those down town.
What I found incredible was the lack of a single direction sign all along the route, perhaps an extension to the logic of minimal street names in the city. A stranger would need to be sure he was travelling on the correct highway. The turn off to the airport was indicated through telepathy only.
We arrived at the airport as sweaty wrecks, but were stimulated back into reality when we read the flight boards in amazement. Precisionair, our carrier, indicated a departure time of 15:30. So, my ticket informed me the departure time was 14:20, Dan's departure time for the same flight was 16:00, Precisionair website had indicated 16:00 when I checked it on 20th March, and the actual time on the day was 15:30.
I sat next to a Dutch family on the plane. They had been on safari, but unfortunately they had all been so ill with diarrhoea that they had to curtail it and spend a few days in a lodge to recover. Just as well I brought Imodium with me, I thought. I joked with the father about the crazy flight times. "I have a friend who lives out here and often travels on Precisionair. He calls the carrier Imprecisionair. Often, when the carrier thinks they have enough people on board, they will just go. Today, some people who turned up for a 16:00 flight time were being left behind," he told me.
A Couple of Interesting Architectures in Dar
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As our plane swept down towards Kilimanjaro International Airport, we were treated to magnificent views of the spectacular mountain that gave it its namesake. The colossal mountain dominated the plains over which it towered, both physically and figuratively.