Dar Es Salaam | Tanzania
Dar Es Salaam is a big city, full of life and sounds.
Coming from the rolling green hills or the expansive plains or the sandy beaches in the other parts of Tanzania, it might feel a bit overwhelming. But as a city girl, I love its grittiness. Its slamming together of different cultures. Its people packed together trying to make it work.
The challenges of big city living make you appreciate the small things; like when you successful buy a bus ticket at the correct price or find an empty table in a garden cafe or hail a bajaji (tuk-tuk) who obeys traffic laws and still gets you to your destination on time. You appreciate these moments for what they are, quiet miracles in a bustling, constantly moving city of over 4 million people.
From 2009 to 2011, I lived and worked in Tanzania as a high school Biology teacher with the U.S. Peace Corps. I lived in the most Southeastern region of the country, but would take the 12-hour bus ride up to Dar every few months to visit friends, check in with the Peace Corps staff, or use it as a connection point to another city in Tanzania. Most people would tell you to skip Dar, but I always spent a few days there to plan my next adventure and appreciate the street food, huge markets, and air conditioning.
Stay
The YMCA in Dar Es Salaam may be my favorite hotel in the world. I recognize how strange this sounds, given that the bathroom is shared with everyone on the floor and there is no AC in the rooms. I think I love it because it is this incredibly calming presence, right in the heart of the city. Situated next to the Post Office and the main city bus stop, the streets are filled with taxi horns and shouting street vendors and ever-present construction. But you then you turn the corner, walk into the YMCA compound, and are immediate surrounded by peace and quiet. The hallways are open and breezy, and the rooms are simple and full of light. Looking out on the bustle of the city from my quiet, clean room, I felt like I could stay there forever.
Other people must feel the same way because it’s almost always booked full. I’m sure the $15 a night rate helped as well. When we couldn’t get a room there, I would walk to the nearby Econo Lodge. This larger hotel was safe, had decent rooms and AC, and was affordably priced. The best part of this hotel is its location. The Kisutu neighborhood is a fascinating blend of Indian and Tanzania culture. You can learn all about it walking down Kisutu Street, peaking into beautiful temples and visiting the Indo Tanzania Cultural Center to learn about the migration of Gujarati Indians to Tanzania.
Eat
In between these two lodging options is block after block of delicious food, the memory of which still makes my mouth water years later.
Walking down Libya street, we’d frequently stop at one of the street vendors to buy big dosas filled with spiced potato or a few crispy samosas filled with steaming lentils.
While I was warned against it constantly because the risk of unfiltered water, I couldn’t help but get two glasses of Sugar Cane Juice anytime it was hot and I was staying in the neighborhood. I’d loved watching the women who ran the juice cart keep her many customers in line while she cranked and pressed out the sweetest syrup from the sugar canes and then cutting it with filtered water and a big squeeze of lime.
During warm evenings and especially if I had friends with me, we’d make a visit the Badminton Institute, a sports club that also has a big open seating area with family-style Indian food like saag paneer, chana masala, and garlic naan. I used to love watching them cook the naan, throwing it against the side of the clay oven and catching it when it was perfectly cooked and just before it fell into the coals below.
When the nights were cooler, we’d find a spot at one of the street chicken BBQs in the neighborhood. Sitting in blue plastic chairs right on the sidewalk, we’d sip soda from glass bottles and devour half a chicken covered in a spicy marinade and grilled to perfection.
We’d end the night with super sweet, colorful confectioneries that I’d picked up earlier from one of the many Indian sweets shops in the area.
Explore
As the commercial capital of Tanzania, Dar has some incredible markets.
Kariakoo is one of the most famous, which we would visit whenever we were looking for some obscure chemical or diagram to help teach our high school science students. Filled with everything imaginable in a two-story 1970s Brutalist concrete building, the wares spill out on to the adjacent streets for blocks, attracting hundreds of Tanzanians daily to buy bulk order rice, brightly colored plastic chairs, and yards of patterned kitenge fabric.
My favorite market in Dar is the Kivukoni Fish Market. The open-air building is located on the end of a peninsula in the center of Dar and the water and banks surrounding it are filled with wooden boats hauling in fresh fish. Every type of fish you can imagine is sold on tables under the covered market, the air filled with the smell of the sea. Women have set up stalls just next to the marketing building where they fry up sardines or cuts of tuna and serve over beds of fluffy rice.
If you are in Dar, it’s worth adding an extra day to squeeze in a visit to Mikumi National Park for a safari. Located just a few hours West of Dar, you can get a feel for what the land must have been like hundreds of years ago, with vast plains and open skies.
I visited a few times, but the best trip was definitely when my father came to visit. We used a no-nonsense local safari company, Dove Wildlife Safari, who planned a two day trip for us to Mikumi based on our limited time and budget. The driver picked us up from the airport and by afternoon we were alone in Mikumi, watching elephants walk with their little ones through tall grass in the setting sun. The next morning, we watched the sunrise and a female lion stalk through the tall grass.
We spent the afternoon hiking up a beautiful waterfall near the Udzungwa National Park. It was an incredibly beautiful and peaceful experience and provided such a stark contrast to the noise and bustle of Dar, showing how amazingly diverse this beautiful country is.
