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.

An Afternoon Walk

Bajajs look like toy cars tearing around the dusty roads in Mikocheni

I love the scaffolding here, irregular wood posts all stacked together under the top level of the construction. It is strange that they are inside the building rather than surrounding the exterior.

More scaffolding at another construction site

I took my first dale dale ride the other day to come back from town, it was really crowded and I struggled to explain to the conductor where I wanted to get off. Luckily a helpful man who understood English told him to stop at the next stop and told me to get off. The vehicle didn't even come to a complete stop and I had to squeeze past other passengers and commuters to get to the door way.

Customised and colourful

A clear Bob Marley reference, you see all kinds of sayings and slogans on the bajajs here. The typography and graphic styles are pretty interesting and unique to here too.

Weather beaten and sun bleached advertising, in the gutter

Another roadside garden centre

More plants for sale along the road

Local honey for sale in re-used Konyagi bottles

I took these photos during an afternoon stroll, I stopped to talk to a guy selling this honey because I thought he was going to ask me for money for photographing his produce. Fortunately he didn't mind and it turns out he was in Holland recently working on an MA, we had a pleasant conversation. Konyagi is a Tanzanian alcoholic drink, I tried it only once and I found it quite sugary. 'It's not vodka, it's not gin - it's konyagi' is the slogan they use. It seems to be incredibly popular here, I've seen many discarded Konyagi bottles along the sides of the roads and many of the bars I've been too have been well stocked with it.