From Dar to Bagamoyo and Back Again

On Tuesday October 7th, Klara, Anna, and I met up and walked to the dock to board our ferry that would be taking us to Dar es Salaam. Sadly, we had to wake up really early because the boat left at 7:30am and boarding was at 7:00am. But luckily once on the ferry, I slept the entire way to the mainland even though we had economy class tickets in the “non-air conditioning” area. Once the ferry docked, we headed towards an area of Dar that had cheap, budget hotels/hostels that we could stay in for 2 nights. And the first one got the ticket at a place called Jambo Inn (not to be confused with the previous Jambo Brother’s Inn). We basically dropped our stuff in the room and then headed out to see the city.

Now prior to my trip, I had been told by some Zanzibaris that Dar es Salaam was the “New York City” of Tanzania. However, since I have never been to New York, I cannot make a fair judgment, but if New York City is anything like Dar, I really don’t have a desire to visit. Dar was extremely boring with about 5 popular “tourist” spots, but for the most part, the city was a working city that people we to during the day and left at night.

Our first stop of sightseeing was to the Catholic Church that was right on the coast near the dock. It was very beautiful and also called St. Joseph’s Cathedral (just like the Catholic Church in Zanzibar). Then we walked for quite some time to get to the fish market because Anna really wanted to see it. And can I tell you that I have never smelled something as disgusting in my life (and I come from New Orleans). Not to mention all the water and who knows what else we were walking in while at the fish market. And I was not in a happy mood after walking 30 minutes to get to the market, only to tread through smelling muck and leave after about 5 minutes.

But we then headed towards the National Museum of Tanzania where we had a conflict of interest because I really wanted to go inside and see the exhibits, but Anna said, “I’m not much of a museum person.” At this point I wanted to tell her, “I walked through a smelly fish market for you; you can at least come into a museum about the history of the country you are traveling through!” But I held my tongue. And the museum was actually really cool. It went through each age of colonialism and how the country was affected over the years, but I was still amazed at how unpreserved the different artifacts were. In about 20 years, half of the things won’t be there because they would have deteriorated. There was also a memorial from the 1998 terrorist bombing of the US Embassy in Tanzania, and I have to say that it was a little creepy. There were remains of the bomb attack including a car, bicycle, a glass window, and a statue of a woman whose arms had been blown off. Feeling a little bit sad, we continued into the “biology” area of the museum which lifted our spirits. They had a great exhibit on the development of the human and when it got to the current human species, there was only a mirror. I thought that was extremely clever.

So after about an hour at the museum, we headed to have some lunch and amazingly enough, we found a Subway! I was so excited that I marched right in and got in line. However, I was extremely disappointed when the worker told me that there was no Turkey or Ham. So I had a sandwich with pepperoni, lettuce, black olives, pickles, and “sweet onion sauce” that was nothing like what is in the US. So even though it was definitely not the most delicious thing I ever tasted, it was still a Subway sandwich. And after an unsatisfying lunch, Anna and Klara just wanted to continue to walk around Dar, but soon it started to rain, at which point we got in a taxi and went to an area called Slipways.

When we arrived, before us was a huge shopping area with a bunch of really great shops. So we looked around a bit and then had some ice cream at a local ice cream shop. We stayed here for the remainder of the night and then took a taxi back to our hotel. Luckily Jambo Inn has a restaurant in it that was still open when we arrived. So we settled down there and ordered some late dinner. While waiting for our food, two extremely drunk Americans came and started talking to us. They told us how they were traveling around filming different areas of Africa for National Geographic and that they met the Dali Lama. I seriously doubt if any of their story was true, aside from the fact that they were American.

After dinner we planned our next day. We decided to go to a small city called Bagamoyo which is about 2 hours just north of Dar. We read that Bagamoyo had a lot of history for the country because during German colonization, it was the capital of East Africa. So we set our alarms to wake us up rather early the next morning to get a good start on the day. But the first thing on our agenda was to get our bus tickets for the next morning to take us north to Moshi near Mt. Kilimanjaro. Then we headed to the dalla dalla stop to take us to Bagamoyo. Unfortunately, there was not a bus that went all the way from Dar to Bagamoyo, so we had to stop in another city and switch buses to get where we needed to be.

About 2 and a half hour later, we arrived in the very small, quiet town of Bagamoyo. And of course, right when we arrived, Klara and Anna wanted to know which direction the beach was in. We started walking in the direction that some passerby told us we needed to go, but after a few meters, we stopped to ask again. The second man we asked spoke fairly good English and told us that we needed to go back from the way we came. So we walked back and then headed in the right direction. On the way we visited an art gallery where they painted and sculpted. And one artist sculpted large busts of different political leaders, and they were huge and very colorful. When talking with the guys that created the artwork, we learned that Bagamoyo has one of the largest art schools in the country and students from all over come to learn and study there.

After a little while we found the beach, which was mainly a fishing beach with absolutely no tourists around, but just locals. It was pretty cool to see the local fishermen selling their catch with their boats pulled up on shore next to them. It really gives you an appreciation for the locals in the country and how they still have “trades” that they pride themselves in. We walked all along the coast and then went in several art shops along the way, but the art here was different than all the shops everywhere in Zanzibar. The art here was more original and had something different about it. And in one of the shops, I fell in love with a Tinga Tinga painting and I decided to buy it because I knew the money would be going directly to the artist. The men who worked in that shop were also really nice and they even played their handmade drums and sang to us.

Feeling very happy with my newly purchased painting, we headed back to the main area of town, away from the beach. However, it was about midday and it was unbearably hot outside with no shade and no wind anywhere. But Anna and Klara still wanted to “wander” around the city and see absolutely everything there was to see. So I reluctantly followed along, but at one point I told them that I wanted to stop and get something to drink and rest in the shade. So we stopped, but when we started walking again, we could not find our way back towards the dalla dalla stop. In fact, we had to completely backtrack from the way we came which made me really ticked off because I was sweating bullets and very cranky. We finally made it back to the dalla dalla stop and rode the two hours back into Dar. That night I slept exceptionally well because I was so exhausted from the day in the blazing hot, African sun.