Dar es Salaam
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2002
1
113
157
Trip End
Ongoing
Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
So back in peasant class for us on our flight from Dubai to Dar es Salaam. Booooo we did get exit seats so it wasn't all bad well, not much. But this time there was no champers, business class lounge, goodies to eat, free goodies bag on the plane, nothing. : (
We arrived at Dar es Salaam 5 and a half hours later and joined the random hit and miss type of queue/scrum for the visa counter. $50 per person for a 3 month stay. It didn't take too long. Then we thrust ourselves out into the crowd outside the arrivals hall only to besieged by a million (well nearly, it certainly felt like it)! taxi drivers. This time we had not pre arranged a hotel or taxi! The drivers were actually really good and gave us space once we said we weren't ready yet. We bought an African sim card (from a little booth right outside arrivals) for our mobile and rang a place which was situated north of the city.
Q Bar was where we took the taxi once they had told us the maximum amount of money to pay for the journey. Its always a good idea to find out first instead of being ripped off. (well to try to get a guide price anyway)
For $55 a night we got a big room en-suite with cable TV and full cooked breakfast and wait for it.....FREE laundry service.
We spent 3 nights here. Its situated about 10 minutes walk from Coco beach. The beach itself was quite nice but you are warned only to walk or swim there on a weekend afternoon when it is full of locals or else you risk being mugged! It was the same story at night too that you should not walk about outside but take a taxi. (this would be normal all over the city) So once darkness fell we choose to stay at Q-Bar. On the Wednesday they screened the Champions League Man Utd V Chelsea match live on 3 massive screens and 8 different television sets around the bar area. The place was heaving with locals and ex-pats. It was a really good atmosphere which had the potential to turn really dodgy when there was a power cut 10 seconds after Chelsea scored the equaliser. But it was all fine the power came back on after about 10 minutes. Not sure I could write the same if that happened in an English pub thou!
The day before we left Q-Bar we took a taxi into Dar es Salaam city centre. It was really busy and congested with traffic. After our short time there we came to the conclusion that we were really pleased we decided to stay out where we were on Coco Beach (even if it was more costly). While in the city we visited a few book shops looking for a travel book on Malawi but no luck there. We also booked our bus tickets for our next destination of Arusha up towards the north of Tanzania and after having afternoon tea/coffee and cake at a very swanky expensive hotel we jumped in a taxi and returned back home. We booked our taxi for 7am the next morning to return back into the city where we are taking the 'Princess Class' coach to our next destination of Arusha.
