I caved and wimped out. Yosy and I left the group tonight, for one night only, and checked in to a $350 hotel in Dar es Salaam before we begin our long push tomorrow towards Malawi. After a month on the road, I have all the electric, hot water, fast internet, and CNN I want, and gorgeous rooftop views of the Indian Ocean. I am so happy to have, even if just for 15 hours, all that which I have always taken for granted in the past.
There are no bugs, no mosquito netting and real wood, clean, dry floors. There's a bathtub and delicate soaps and shampoos. There's a scale and a full-length mirror!!! We are headed to a fancy dinner - African fusion - in a restaurant with clean, white tablecloths and dessert!!! I can't wait to have dessert - something chocolate. I've had no dessert since I got to this continent. Fruit, the last course in a mostly one-course country, doesn't count.
It's so good its a shame to go to sleep.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
DAR ES SAALAM
Also known as “Dar is a Slum,” Dar is Tanzania’s largest city. Sitting on the Indian Ocean on the country’s eastern coast, it is a large, smelly, dusty, polluted place, teeming with people from all over the African continent and the Arab world. Vendors sell their wares either on the street itself or from lean-to’s made from corrugated metal. While there are some modern high-risers, it is mostly a typical third-world port city, albeit something out of the 1800’s, no. . . make that the 1700's. I half expected to bump into Johnny Depp in his swash-buckling best, along with his merry band of co-pirates, as well as Sinbad and Popeye, and every Arab slave trader from back in the day. Dar is however, our launching pad for the 2-hour ferry to Zanzibar, an offshore archipelago, that includes the Island of Zanzibar, otherwise known as the “Spice Island.”
We finally landed in Africa’s paradise yesterday. We were a little apprehensive. We had learned from others along our route that Zanzibar had been without electricity for over 3 months. The temperature is above 100 degrees and the humidity comes close to that. The heat is truly oppressive. We were all dripping wet by 10 a.m., with dirt and sweat and salt air streaming down our faces. My hair was a mass of tangles and frizz. No electricity means of course, no air conditioning, no fan, no toilets, no internet and, a nighttime trip back to the room or a bathroom requires navigation by the stars of the southern sky. Tanzania, once known as Tanganyika, is the compromise forged between the mainland and the Zanzibari islands after years of civil war. Over 90% of the archipelago is Muslim, while the mainland is Christian. Zanzibar was the capital of the world for spice and slave trading in the 1200's. We had heard that the Norwegians were trying to fix the underwater electric cable and that if they succeeded there would be electricity when we arrived. But if they failed there would be no electricity until 2012 when the Americans were contracted to lay a new line.
I got a little nervous as I saw the people being packed into the ferry. I read about these Indonesian, South American and African overcrowded ferries that capsize with the women and children going down first. The (live) chickens of the family standing next to us in line escaped from their basket and the father was running hard to catch them. (Which only reminds me of the goat we saw as we drove toward Dar which was tied to the roof of a double trailer truck - obviously the long-distance driver’s dinner). On the other side of us was a class of schoolgirls, chadors and all, while ahead were the ferry ticket takers – moving at African speed. Once we boarded, Surprise! Surprise! Everything was orderly and we all had seats.
Lucky again! The Norwegians were successful and Zanzibar got its electric groove back only 2 days before our arrival. But joy soon turned into reality. The electricity, we had forgotten, was African electricity – it is only turned on early in the morning and at night for just a few hours. Our a/c did not work at all and the ceiling fan died at 3 a.m. when the electric shut down. The toilet works intermittently and our neighbors don’t have water. But, life is good. The sea is about 88 degrees, there’s a gentle breeze (in the shade) and the fish is fresh. It feels good to be off the road for a bit.
The adventure will continue the day after tomorrow when we head back to Dar and continue south through Malawi and finally, Victoria Falls in Zambia. Who knows when we will be connected again?
We finally landed in Africa’s paradise yesterday. We were a little apprehensive. We had learned from others along our route that Zanzibar had been without electricity for over 3 months. The temperature is above 100 degrees and the humidity comes close to that. The heat is truly oppressive. We were all dripping wet by 10 a.m., with dirt and sweat and salt air streaming down our faces. My hair was a mass of tangles and frizz. No electricity means of course, no air conditioning, no fan, no toilets, no internet and, a nighttime trip back to the room or a bathroom requires navigation by the stars of the southern sky. Tanzania, once known as Tanganyika, is the compromise forged between the mainland and the Zanzibari islands after years of civil war. Over 90% of the archipelago is Muslim, while the mainland is Christian. Zanzibar was the capital of the world for spice and slave trading in the 1200's. We had heard that the Norwegians were trying to fix the underwater electric cable and that if they succeeded there would be electricity when we arrived. But if they failed there would be no electricity until 2012 when the Americans were contracted to lay a new line.
I got a little nervous as I saw the people being packed into the ferry. I read about these Indonesian, South American and African overcrowded ferries that capsize with the women and children going down first. The (live) chickens of the family standing next to us in line escaped from their basket and the father was running hard to catch them. (Which only reminds me of the goat we saw as we drove toward Dar which was tied to the roof of a double trailer truck - obviously the long-distance driver’s dinner). On the other side of us was a class of schoolgirls, chadors and all, while ahead were the ferry ticket takers – moving at African speed. Once we boarded, Surprise! Surprise! Everything was orderly and we all had seats.
Lucky again! The Norwegians were successful and Zanzibar got its electric groove back only 2 days before our arrival. But joy soon turned into reality. The electricity, we had forgotten, was African electricity – it is only turned on early in the morning and at night for just a few hours. Our a/c did not work at all and the ceiling fan died at 3 a.m. when the electric shut down. The toilet works intermittently and our neighbors don’t have water. But, life is good. The sea is about 88 degrees, there’s a gentle breeze (in the shade) and the fish is fresh. It feels good to be off the road for a bit.
The adventure will continue the day after tomorrow when we head back to Dar and continue south through Malawi and finally, Victoria Falls in Zambia. Who knows when we will be connected again?
Thursday, March 18, 2010
MISCELLANY
A quick review of my blabber on this site made me realize that I have completely skipped over the smaller details of this amazing adventure. And, Judy asked lots of questions about the food – have we managed to stay healthy and well fed at the same time?
The short answer is an astounding “Yes.” Because most nights we are camping we buy, wash and cook our own food. Every few days, when passing through a “big” city, we stop and stock up. There are supermarkets here that rival the ones back home, although there may only be 2 lightbulbs illuminating the whole store. We can buy just about anything in these stores: toothpaste, yogurt, passion fruit juice, saran wrap, snickers’ bars and Pringles. Fresh fruit and vegetables are plentiful and delicious. For breakfast we usually have fruit salad, toast, and/or either pancakes (from scratch) or eggs. And, the Kenyan coffee is substantive and gives a good jolt. Lunch is a sandwich of lunch meats, salad, tuna or pasta. Dinner is goat or cow meat, pasta or rice and sweet potatoes, which are white here, not orange. NO DESSERT EVER is served. I’ve continued with the vegetarian regime I started about 9 months ago and so haven’t had the meat, but Yosy says its delicious.
Although our stomachs have been behaving, we have signs of Africa all over our bodies: I have three spider bites, one each on my wrist, foot and finger. A prick of a needle takes out the pus and some antibiotic cream and a band-aid is all that’s then needed to cure. It doesn’t hurt at all and I have no recollection of ever being bitten. Low-lying acacia trees have 3 inch, very sharp thorns. I’ve been attached by these several times when making a pit stop along the road, and it hurts like hell until you disconnect yourself from the trees. They leave little red dots where they’ve stuck you, which look quite like a mosquito bite, so a few of these are decorating my rear end and arm. I woke up this morning with a scab on my forehead and have no idea what that is. Of course, we are quite tan, despite the gobs of suntan cream we’ve been using – we’re only 4 degrees south of the equator, so the sun is very strong. My feet are filthy and cracked – its hard to get them really clean and every day we are covered in dust. In fact, the hardest thing about being here is staying clean. Its over 95 degrees and showers only trickle down when available. But that’s the worst of it. NO ONE has gotten sick in our group (knock wood).
I finally saw, after a wait of more than 30 years, a baobab tree. There were pictures of the tree in the Little Prince, a book I read sophmore year in college French, and I loved the exoticness of the tree – they don’t resemble anything that we have in the US, nor have I seen them anywhere else in my travels. In the book, they look like old souls who silently watch and wait. They always stand alone and have thick wide, stump-like trunks – almost as wide as they are tall. The branches, which start fairly high up on the trunk, are few and far between and are also thick and very crooked. The branches are sparsely covered in green leaves.. I made the driver stop at the first baobab we saw. It was located off the side of a winding road high in the mountains of northeastern Tanzania. It looked younger and much spryer and happier than I had imagined. Contrary to the picture in the book, the leaves were plentiful and all shades of green. It is still, together with the acacia umbrella, my favorite tree and is unique in character and charm.
We visited a home for street children in Arusha, the gateway city to the Serengeti. The project was started by some English passersby and houses 76, mostly boys. (The director told us that the girls are harder to find – they are often sold as household help and remain hidden inside gated homes.)
Whenever I’m asked where I’m from, I now respond “The United States of Obama.” An African with no knowledge of English at all, will give a thumbs’ up sign and say “Obama,” when they learn where we’re American. Everywhere we go there are signs of Obama worship: T-shirts, photos, notebooks with his and Michelle’s picture on the cover, and even the “Obama Hair Salon.” They are very proud that a black person, one of their own, has made it so far. The Kenyans actually believed that things would change for the better in their country when Obama took office. They all said that “Obama will make things right” in Kenya. They, of course, have no idea of the problems Obama faces in the US and that his time may be otherwise occupied for a while.
We were in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro yesterday and are in the Usambura mountains today (northeastern Tanzania). Between the two days, we trekked 8 hours – 4 today and 4 yesterday, at about 5,000 feet high, to experience village life. As we made our way up and down hills along dirt roads, we passed through one village after another. The area we are now in is called the “Galapagos of the Plant World,” for the diversity of the flora, and it did not disappoint. We passed through avocado and banana fields, corn fields and gumwood forests. We ate jackfruit (a cross between a pineapple, banana and melon) and ate sugar cane straight off the cane. The vegetation is thick and lush and no one here is hungry. As we passed through villages, we heard singing in the churches, childrens’ voices from the schools, goats doing whatever goats do, and cows mooing. It was noisy, but quiet at the same time. It was the sound of happiness and contentment despite the evident poverty. Extended families live close by and communities are strong. Life is orderly and expectations are clear. Everywhere we go people greet us with “Jambo,” (Hello) and “Karibou,” ((Welcome). And people here really do say “Hakuna Matata,” (easy, easy, relax). And, Mt. Kili, the highest mountain in Africa, with its snow-covered peak, looks over the whole place.
Continuing to head south
The short answer is an astounding “Yes.” Because most nights we are camping we buy, wash and cook our own food. Every few days, when passing through a “big” city, we stop and stock up. There are supermarkets here that rival the ones back home, although there may only be 2 lightbulbs illuminating the whole store. We can buy just about anything in these stores: toothpaste, yogurt, passion fruit juice, saran wrap, snickers’ bars and Pringles. Fresh fruit and vegetables are plentiful and delicious. For breakfast we usually have fruit salad, toast, and/or either pancakes (from scratch) or eggs. And, the Kenyan coffee is substantive and gives a good jolt. Lunch is a sandwich of lunch meats, salad, tuna or pasta. Dinner is goat or cow meat, pasta or rice and sweet potatoes, which are white here, not orange. NO DESSERT EVER is served. I’ve continued with the vegetarian regime I started about 9 months ago and so haven’t had the meat, but Yosy says its delicious.
Although our stomachs have been behaving, we have signs of Africa all over our bodies: I have three spider bites, one each on my wrist, foot and finger. A prick of a needle takes out the pus and some antibiotic cream and a band-aid is all that’s then needed to cure. It doesn’t hurt at all and I have no recollection of ever being bitten. Low-lying acacia trees have 3 inch, very sharp thorns. I’ve been attached by these several times when making a pit stop along the road, and it hurts like hell until you disconnect yourself from the trees. They leave little red dots where they’ve stuck you, which look quite like a mosquito bite, so a few of these are decorating my rear end and arm. I woke up this morning with a scab on my forehead and have no idea what that is. Of course, we are quite tan, despite the gobs of suntan cream we’ve been using – we’re only 4 degrees south of the equator, so the sun is very strong. My feet are filthy and cracked – its hard to get them really clean and every day we are covered in dust. In fact, the hardest thing about being here is staying clean. Its over 95 degrees and showers only trickle down when available. But that’s the worst of it. NO ONE has gotten sick in our group (knock wood).
I finally saw, after a wait of more than 30 years, a baobab tree. There were pictures of the tree in the Little Prince, a book I read sophmore year in college French, and I loved the exoticness of the tree – they don’t resemble anything that we have in the US, nor have I seen them anywhere else in my travels. In the book, they look like old souls who silently watch and wait. They always stand alone and have thick wide, stump-like trunks – almost as wide as they are tall. The branches, which start fairly high up on the trunk, are few and far between and are also thick and very crooked. The branches are sparsely covered in green leaves.. I made the driver stop at the first baobab we saw. It was located off the side of a winding road high in the mountains of northeastern Tanzania. It looked younger and much spryer and happier than I had imagined. Contrary to the picture in the book, the leaves were plentiful and all shades of green. It is still, together with the acacia umbrella, my favorite tree and is unique in character and charm.
We visited a home for street children in Arusha, the gateway city to the Serengeti. The project was started by some English passersby and houses 76, mostly boys. (The director told us that the girls are harder to find – they are often sold as household help and remain hidden inside gated homes.)
Whenever I’m asked where I’m from, I now respond “The United States of Obama.” An African with no knowledge of English at all, will give a thumbs’ up sign and say “Obama,” when they learn where we’re American. Everywhere we go there are signs of Obama worship: T-shirts, photos, notebooks with his and Michelle’s picture on the cover, and even the “Obama Hair Salon.” They are very proud that a black person, one of their own, has made it so far. The Kenyans actually believed that things would change for the better in their country when Obama took office. They all said that “Obama will make things right” in Kenya. They, of course, have no idea of the problems Obama faces in the US and that his time may be otherwise occupied for a while.
We were in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro yesterday and are in the Usambura mountains today (northeastern Tanzania). Between the two days, we trekked 8 hours – 4 today and 4 yesterday, at about 5,000 feet high, to experience village life. As we made our way up and down hills along dirt roads, we passed through one village after another. The area we are now in is called the “Galapagos of the Plant World,” for the diversity of the flora, and it did not disappoint. We passed through avocado and banana fields, corn fields and gumwood forests. We ate jackfruit (a cross between a pineapple, banana and melon) and ate sugar cane straight off the cane. The vegetation is thick and lush and no one here is hungry. As we passed through villages, we heard singing in the churches, childrens’ voices from the schools, goats doing whatever goats do, and cows mooing. It was noisy, but quiet at the same time. It was the sound of happiness and contentment despite the evident poverty. Extended families live close by and communities are strong. Life is orderly and expectations are clear. Everywhere we go people greet us with “Jambo,” (Hello) and “Karibou,” ((Welcome). And people here really do say “Hakuna Matata,” (easy, easy, relax). And, Mt. Kili, the highest mountain in Africa, with its snow-covered peak, looks over the whole place.
Continuing to head south
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
