Dar es Salaam

According to the little web cafe ticker I have eighteen minutes to write and post this blog. The Tazara train from Zambia was lovely and I am now in Tanzania. Dar is a large cosmopolitan city that still feels manageable. The streets are filled with young guys carting around wheelbarrows full of tropical fruit and the call to prayer is blasted every few hours.

We stayed at a horrible little guesthouse called Jambo Inn which was for some reason the top pick in the Lonely Planet. I recently read some expose of guidebook writing and since I'm pressed for time I'll link to it later. I'm pretty sure there's no way the writer even went there.

My Mozambique visa is being processed and we head south in a few days. In the meantime I'm going to try all the amazing variety of street food and hole in the wall Indian restaurants that abound here.

In contrast to Lusaka's collection of suburbs surrounded by townships, Dar is a walkable city with a lot of street life and tall colonial era apartment blocks. The density drastically changes the nature of the place and in general it feels prosporous and safe.