I love Dar

When you are backpacking you usually try to avoid big cities, especially in less developed countries. Big cities are always busy, stressy and ugly, as proven by our short visits to Gaborone, Harare, Lusaka, Lilongwe, Mbeya and even with Cape Town I couldn't get very close. After traveling through beautiful countryside, staying in relaxed hostels and living a slow pace, you are mostly overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle and anonymity, the noise, dirt, smells and crowds.
Dar Es Salaam has all this plus a heat of 30 degree and still I fell for this place.

Maybe it is because it reminds me of Almaty in summer... the traffic chaos, the food stalls, the crowd of people on the streets - isn't it all similar in these third world country metropolises? Maybe that made me adjust better, helped finding the right places, meet friendly locals (mostly the Arab immigrants, not the Africans), made me move around so quickly and easily, that even though I might be the only white person around, people don't stop and call me "muzungu" anymore... as if I'm merging with the various colors around me.
Whatever it is, in no time I felt comfortable here, know the street names by heart and all the little secrets you need to know in a big city like good exchange rates, good&cheap food, who is open sundays and what is a good taxi fare.

See our dinner tonight for 3EUR per person, directly grilled on the street (yummy chicken in funny shape including neck and tail), with fresh naan bread and a water tank to wash your hands:

11 days in paradise

What can you do when you are frustrated by the local circumstances, stressed by people, traffic and ever changing hotel beds, tired of being chased by touts, in short: sick of traveling? You clearly need a holiday!

And this is what we did for the last 11 days. We had a holiday from traveling. We found a place with friendly staff, good kitchen (both rare so far) and located on the beach. We kicked off our shoes and settled into a routine of kite surfing and reading every day. We hadn't planned to stay that long, but we felt so comfortable in the resort, we were surrounded by relaxed European holiday makers, there was a pool and of course an amazing beach, we just didn't want to leave anymore. The whole place felt so far away from the "real" Africa that we traveled so far, it made it easy for us to enjoy it.

Our kitesurf instructor (a German girl from Krefeld) mentioned the other day, that "Africa is definitely MY thing", whereupon I asked back, what other than Zanzibar she has seen of Africa and it turns out nothing. Yes, I thought by myself, if Africa is like Zanzibar, everybody would love it.

So we enjoyed our piece of paradise, chatted to other tourists, enjoyed good food along the beach and slowly made progress on our kitesurfing abilities, of course not without lots of bruises, scratches and twisted limbs.

And very surprisingly, after 10 days we admitted that slowly but surely we've had enough of carefree paradise, we were looking forward to being travelers again.

 

John's highlights

As we now have a new laptop i thought i had better add my two cents worth as well. This journey has had its up and downs. The biggest down was obviously when everything got stolen but we have managed to bounce back and not let that one incident ruin everything. Although the experience was extremely upsetting it did show us that we could survive without many things and in a funny way it did bring us closer together.

Since Christiane is udating you all on what we have been doing since the lasts post I won't spend to much time on that. Although i do have to mention the places we have visted that I have enjoyed the most. Etosha national park, Livingston, Lake Malawi and Zanzibar are at the top of my list. I am just going to write briefly on the two earlier experiences Etosha National Park and Livingston as i don't want to muddle up the order of this blog and i am sure Christiane and I will write more regarding Lake Malawi and Zanzibar (Which mainly involves us kite surfing...awesome fun i might add)

One of the biggest driving forces for me to visit Africa in the first place was to come and see the animals. Most are unique to Africa and seeing them up close and personnel in their natural habitat didn't disappoint. We had herds of Zebras, Springboks, Impala in fact every sort of Antelope you could imaging grazing and frolicking literally meters from the car. Elephants and Girrafes cooling themselves off at waterholes. There were lions pacing lazily next to us without a care in the world, Wilderbeest by the hundreds and even Hyenas with their funny gait and lopsided smiles making early morning apperances. All in all it was a wonderful experience and one we hope to repeat soon when we visit the Serengeti. This time armed and dangerous with a brand camera and long distance lens. So expect some awesome photos.

Livingston is a strange place, a tourist mecca in the middle of Southern Africa. It nestles on the Zambian side of the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. I think its popularity has increased ten fold as the popularity of the town of Victoria falls which is on the Zimbabwe side has declined. Mainly because of the strife that has been going on there. But one persons loss is another persons gain so to speak and Livingston is booming. As well as only being 10km away from one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls, it offers many things that the avid tourist would want, like White water rafting, Helicopter rides over the falls, Bungee jumping, Gorge swings, canoeing and many more adrenalin fueled activities that i can't remember. However these activities are not cheap and whilst i would have liked to indulge in more we only partook in the rafting and Gorge swing. But that was enough to sate my adrenalin junkie desires. The gorge swing especially was terrifing, probably not as bad a bungee jumping but launching yourself backwards, actually stapping yourself to your girlfriend and then launching yourself backwards of a cliff whilst falling for 4 seconds and tumbling definitely gets the old ticker racing.

Anyway thats just two of my highlights and i will write about my others when the blog has caught up a bit. Still lots more to see of this continent yet so i hope you stay with us and enjoy the ride.

This is Africa

Sometimes special African phenomena appear already so normal to us that we don't give it a second thought anymore. There are the ancient looking ox carriages you see next to the roads. In some countries people had donkeys and especially in Botswana where there are much more donkeys than people, there were 3 or 4 in front of the carriages.
Other than this goats and chicken roam the streets everywhere, sometimes cattle but only in the slightly richer areas. Women carry babies on their back and luggage on the head or whatever they just shopped and most importantly, women ALWAYS wear long skirts. I bought myself one the other day in order to be less conspicuous. Appearantly knees are considered a sexual symbol, so walking around in a mini skirt raises lots of attention and comments.
　

Transportation is another topic. In areas where people own bicycles you often see more than 1 person on it. Usually men are riding it and a woman, a toddler or both sit on the back including the groceries. In general it is more the men who are traveling, be it by car, bike, bus or whatsoever. Women you see next to the roads are mostly walking with firewood on their head, or shopping items, or they are washing cloth or preparing food.

Whenever you see a vehicle with loading space it is full with people. In case there is actually cargo loaded at least one person is sitting on it in order to protect it from thieves.

The most African phenomenon however is the minibus.
Imagine a 9seater-bus. Imagine how you consider it full, when every seat is taken. Imagine how cheeky you would feel when you squeeze one more person in, criminal even... And now take this scene to Africa: add another 10-12 people, half of them with babies, chuck a couple of live chicken in, fill the gaps with big bags full with rice or potatoes, some luggage here and there and age the minibus by 20 years. There you go, that is medium distance traveling in Africa.

Long distance traveling is done in normal big busses (everything between 1 and 20 years old vehicles) but it doesn't mean you have a seat for yourself.

Sometimes the only way to escape this craziness is investing in a taxi, which is mostly not official, but it gives you some much needed space...

Zanzibaaaaar

Hello world,I have a new laptop! A tiny one, but with a keyboard, so I can keep on updating you on our travel adventures. Unfortunately the screen is already errornous (pixels missing) so I will have to return it... I knew it can't be the best option to buy something like this in Africa...

Anyway, we are in Zanzibar. What happened between Etosha and Zanzibar I noted down in a exercise book with a pen and bit by bit I will transform it into blogposts. As you can't know what we have seen and experienced in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania in the last weeks the following probably doesn't make much sense to you, but: Zanzibar is refreshingly different and lovable! Here the orient meets southern Africa and a little bit of European architecture, it seems to be worlds apart from mainland Tanzania and not just a 90minutes ferry ride...

Whereas in Tanzania we already recognised significantly more Muslims compared to all the other countries we've traveled through, in Zanzibar you seem to be right in the middle of the Arab world. Women were not only headscarfs but long garments covering the whole body and sometimes the face. It is Ramadan, so praying is the most important thing and you can hear muezzins calling from every corner at any time of the day. Life however goes on despite the fact that muslims don't eat and drink during the day. But they go to the market, do their business and serve food to tourists. Sometimes they would seat you in a remote corner of their cafe in order not to offend the muslim community. Eating streetfood in public makes you actually feel a bit bad but nobody would say anything to you.

The street sellers are quite annoying, sometimes aggressive. According to them you should constantly buy souvenirs, book tours or require a taxi. Saying no is mostly not enough, saying no 3 times doesn't help either and soon you find yourself being rude to these people who actually just trying to make money. It doesn't cross their mind that you want to be left in peace or even that western tourists are more likely to spend more money without having someone sweet-talking at their side...

Anyway, roaming the narrow streets of Stone Town, looking at the local market, trying exotic fruits and street food and relaxing at one of the many wellness centers is a real pleasure here.