Indian Ocean Choices

Indian Ocean Choices LTD at Slip Way, what a great name for a business

A fisherman's cabin

Ramshackle pirate boat

Dhow in the gap through the trees

Tide is out, the shallow waters get really hot if you try and walk through them to the sea and the sand if crawling with crabs and it's squelchy and uncomfortable to walk over

Picnic lunch on the beach, a make-shift stove

Lazy afternoon drinks on the beach, they invited me to pull up a chair in the shade and join in the party.

Some pictures taken in Masaki and Oyster Bay. The tides here are big, the sea recedes a long way from the shore leaving shallow pools and exposing seaweed. There are often dhows tracking across the bays and many other boats too.

There are always dramatic cloud formations thunderously forming in the bright blue skies. It makes for interesting photographs, the sea and sky ever changing, so relaxing to sit on the beach and watch the tides change and the clouds pass over head. I love to be by open water.

Mwenge Market

One of my first experiences of Dar was my stroll over to Mwenge market. In the blazing heat before I had managed to acclimatise, I arrived at some artisan stalls where they were selling carved wooden figures, fabrics, paintings and beaded jewellery. The stall holders were on too much of a hard sell, I felt I couldn't even look things without having them pressed into my hands. It was too much hassle, I wanted to just take it all in. I decided to get away from them and continued on to the real local part of the market. Picking my way through the crowded streets, crossing from road to shop over small wooden planks bridging the large ditches lining the streets to cope with the frequent high level of rain. There was a lot of stuff on offer - shoes, bags, fruit and veg, clothes, household items. There was so much going on, but I was exacerbated by the heat, I had to give up and go back.

Finally we returned to have another scout through what these crowded roads and streets have to offer. I was looking for some khangas and earrings to send home as gifts and just to soak up the amosphere of the market once more. It was a Saturday morning but reasonably early so some stall holders were just beginning to lay out their merchandise. We went into streets behind streets, I would have never imagined to be there. Hoards of shoes and bags hidden behind the main drag with its constant stream of people, cars and buses all fighting their way through the throng. Personal space here is not exactly a notion many people have grasped, you get knocked about a lot, people skim your sides to get past even when there is plenty of room, its odd.

It was overwhelming just how much was on sale in such tight spaces. And in sheltered courtyards, lined with shops women were sat around braiding hair. One woman was surrounded by three Masai men having her hair done. They were greeting me and talking at me in Swahili, I just flashed smiles around the place in return. I thought it was unique that a tourist had found herself in the thick of this market, but as we were leaving to go and sit down to a nice refreshing drink, I saw another mzungu woman. She was alone, unescorted. All my feelings of pride for being an intrepid and exotic traveler, fearlessly roaming the busy and bustling local market streets unperturbed by the bemused stares suddenly drained away.

It's a shame we don't have proper markets. Or if we do, it's because out immigrant communities have reintroduced them. Uncovering aladdin's caves and bartering makes a nice change from your standard high street, chain store retail experience. The again, sitting down after being baked by the sun, battered by the mob, exhausted by the dizzying amount of people was a welcome and satisfying end to the morning.

Trip into Town

On the road, journey in, cargo boxes with P&O logos on the side, something I didn't expect to see here, although, Dar is a coastal city.

More cargo

Wirey trees on the tidal shore-line as we cross the river on the road into town. You can't see but the tide was out and but the wind was bringing in the sea air.

Ocean road

View from the bajaj, the driver was crazy. Traffic rules here are pretty flexible, but this guy sped down the central reservation to get us past the worst of the traffic. Monster-like cats eyes or metal bumps in the road nearly through us our of the vehicle we were going so fast. Got us there in record time, bit of a roller-coster ride.

Rows and rows of post office boxes at the main post office in town, many people here use these boxes rather than their home addresses to get things delivered to.

See these kinds of carts everywhere, wouldn't like to have to push or pull one in this heat

An old building

Docks in the distance

Guy cycling with a cart on the back

German colonial building

Breadfruit, big mudguards on the back with Swahili sayings are very common

A pretty cool tree

More colonial German buildings

Backed up traffic, congestion as people queue to get into town

A Greek Othodox Church, there is a sizable Greek community here in Dar

First trip into town was slightly marred by a nasty encounter with an angry military guard at the State House. I took a photo of traffic posts outside, not knowing that I was anywhere near the State House nor that it was forbidden to take photographs. He was on a huge power trip and made me delete the offending photo and some others. He barked at us that we don't have permission to do so. I thought for a moment that we were going to get marched off for an interview with the police. It's common to have to bribe people here and I wasn't particularly happy at the idea of having to part with money to get him to leave us alone. I also worried for a brief moment that he thought I was some kind of security threat, but honestly, if that was the case would I be so open about taking photographs?

We escaped his angry, evil grip and went on our way. Got some first impressions of the town centre and stopped into the Alliance Francaise to see what cultural events they had in the pipeline.

Got incredibly, horribly, nastily sweaty and melted in the process!

Cocobeach Oyster Bay

The Indian Ocean from Cocobeach. The tiny dots on the horizon are huge ships that seem to be anchored out at sea.

Cacti, I had to change in a small nook, surrounded by all these spiky cactus fans, protected from intrusive stares but scared I was going to lose my balance and have to spend the rest of the day picking spikes out of my skin.

White sand and palm trees - I'm so happy!

Had to cool off, dry off and re-hydrate at the beach bar. The sun is so powerful here, the light quality so intense that this window was like a mirror. You can see reflected the other cafe clients and the beach in the sweeping away in the background.

Cocobeach is in Oyster Bay, a nice and up-market part of Dar-es-Salaam. Many expats live in this area, the roads all have tarmac, some old colonial bungalows remain and the rest of the houses are like palaces. It's also home to St Peter's Cathedral which the previous Pope visited once.

The water was so incredibly warm, a little bit stirred up because the bay is quite exposed, it opens out to the Indian Ocean with little protection from headlands. I splashed about for a bit and then walked along the shore-line looking for shells. As a child, on holiday with my cousins and other family members we have always combed through the sand and pebbles for washed up, discarded shells and sea debris. We have found all sorts of things over the years. I found a large worn down and disk-like piece of curved bone. It's extraordinary, I can't for the life of me imagine what kind of animal it used to belong to, or how big the creature was.

Cocobeach is a relaxed place, some guys were marinading meat and fish for a big beach lunch. They were making coal fires to cook over in old metal car wheels. They invited me to join but I politely declined. I didn't much feel like an afternoon for hand signals for communication between English and Swahili and fighting off advances from each of them in turn.