Dar es Salaam

I have discovered the worst thing about travelling alone is not feeling lonely sometimes (actually i've rarely been on my own since Mum left), it's not taking slightly more expensive single rooms... it's having to make my own decisions!! There is nobody to tell me I have to go here or there, which invariably leeds to much dillydallying on the way. When I arrived in Dar at 6 in the morning, I had a number of options...

1. get 24 hr bus that morning to Lusaka, Zambia.
2. get bus to Mombassa to try and volunteer with a man who i had not been able to contact.
3. go to Arusha and climb Mt Meru
4. work my way slowly up the coast stopping in small towns along the way or...
5. stay in Dar

In the end it was the lack of clean clothes in my bag and the increasing pile of smelly ones that made me stay in Dar for at least one night!

Dar, like any other big African city, has a bustling, dirty, negative reputation. But actually to the contary I found walking around the city really quite enjoyable. There is a lovely large busy port area where I sat and watched the goings on. I had the most delicious Salad Nicoise in a tiny western-style cafe (not kidding- this was a highlight!) and i visited the national museum in the afternoon. It had an interesting collection of Swahili relics and historical artefacts from 3million years ago, when ape ancestors first walked bipedal leaving footprints in western Tanzania, to German then British ruling and independance. I was obviously in the mood for a museum because I had to be asked to leave as it was past their closing time!

The following day I still had not made my mind up where to go, so instead I went in search of the Drago truck. I had had an email from Mamba (our cook) who told me of the beach where they were staying south of Dar. After quite a epic adventure on 4 different daladala (local minibuses) and 2 ferries I got to the beach. It was great to see Mamba and Rich again, their new group was just about to fly in the next day. Acutally, they told me that the day after Mum and I left the truck the whole thing completely broke down. They barely got to Nairobi and then spent 10 days trying to fix, in the end they had to make it a new engine!! Poor Josh (that was it's name).

As i got back to the YWCA that evening, i met two friends that i had met in Zanzibar. The two people who had put me in touch with the volunteer position in Mombassa. So I've been travelling with them the last couple of days up to Mtongwe, and small village outside Mombassa. I had hoped to teach in the school there for a week or so, for something a bit different, but when we arrived last evening the man who organised everything was no-where! (actually the story is, he's landed himself in jail but nobody knows for what!) The others tell me he's a little excentric, but he had also failed to tell them or me that the schools broke up for summer holidays yesterday- TIA!! So there is no volunteering to be done.

Instead I am heading up the coast to Lamu for a few days- for yet even more relaxing, beaches and swahili culture.