Overkill is underrated
Yesterday I went to the movies to see the A-Team movie. And the above quote matches one the one hand the movie and on the other hand the sound system of the cinema. I came out almost deaf 
But the movie is a nice, easy to digest, entertaining and funny action movie. I liked it, even with the images of the original series in mind. The characters are definitely very good, i especially liked Murdock in the new movie. So anyone looking for a movie with a lot of shooting, explosions, funny moments and some swahili in it, go for it
Some thoughts, some recap..
After having spent already more than 4 weeks in Africa/Dar es Salaam/Tanzania, I think it is time for a little recap. First of all, I think it is very hard, up to almost impossible to describe the whole thing in a way, that someone, who has never been here before can really get the feeling of how life is here. I will try my very best, but to completely get it, you need to come here (Africa) by yourself. This is not because I consider you stupid or that I suck at writing (whilst this still needs to be discussed) but only because almost everything is so different from everything I knew up to now. This starts with the obvious things like poverty, traffic, public transport or food, but also goes down to such little things as garbage collection or the attitude of people. I think I already talked quite a lo will only say once again, that it is kind of horrible, to quote a guide book: “ The danger of getting mugged in Dar es Salaam at night is about 10 times smaller than getting hit by a car at night”. And I can fully agree with that. May it be the almost complete absence of any official executives, the poor quality of roads in some places or the sheer endless amount of cars? I don’t know, but this is definitely one of the things I will remember the most. And this is a nice transition to another topic, which is the poverty. According to Wikipedia, Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world. On the other hand, the political stability is very high, which makes Tanzania quite attractive towards investors or developing aid help. But those are all things that you could also look up by yourself if you are interested in this topic. What I find quite remarkable is the direct confrontation of wealth and poverty you can see every day. On the one hand you see a Porsche Cayenne on the street (driven by an African man), whilst there are two guys at the roadside, collecting garbage to even find something useful in there. And this goes on, you have people (and when I am talking about people here, I don’t refer to expats or other strangers, but to African people) who are living under very bad conditions, with very little money/food every day, while there is a growing local middle class of people, who can afford a car and a nice house. It is hard to put this in words; it is simply this heterogeneity that stuns me from time to time.
But I wanted to kind of recap the time already spent here. So I have met quite some nice people (mostly people from Germany / Europe) here, I am used to the hectic and the stress in the city (at least it doesn’t give me headaches everyday) and I am also (at least some kind of) used to the fact that you ALWAYS stand out because of your skincolor. You will always get attention, which I don’t like too much. But anyways, people a very friendly towards me. Mostly, they try to sell stuff, but even if not, they are mostly nice and help you, if you have any problems.
I am still living in the hotel, a nice place, which is clean and friendly, but being in a hotel for such a long time kinda sucks, because you are mostly alone, you have no place to prepare food (which means that you have to go out to eat for almost every time) and finally, my room is quite small. So, luckily, with a little help of the people here, I found a new place to stay for the second month, I will be moving in a flat with two other Germans next week, I am really looking forward to this.
What else? Right now, nothing. That’s it for now.
The Pugu story pt. II
So after succesfully (but quite exhausted) arriving at our place for the night, we first moved into our accomodation for the night (a tent), later strolled around the whole area a bit. But due to the fact, that it was already getting dark, we closed the evening with some time sitting at the fire and listening to the sorrounding nature (and the mosque, that was obviously nearby). So after falling a sleep to the sounds of the jungle, we started the saturday with a great breakfast in the nearby restaurant.
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| Pugu Hills 20-08-2010 |
See the pictures for a better impression than the text could offer. Our breakfast company were some monkeys in the nearby woods, which added a nice atmosphere to the whole thing. After breakfast we started (accompanied by a guide) a hike around the nearby area. Yeah, you are reading correct, I went for a hike . Du to the fact that you need a special permit to enter the actual nature reservation, our guide led us around in the nearby hills and villages, it was a nice, but quite hot walk through nature as well as the village and more. Once again I recommend the pictures for a better impression. After 2.5 h of hiking in the burning sun we returned to the camp. And then we were able to take full advantage of the beautiful nature pool, that this camp has. So we spent some time there and after feeling recovered enough, we started our trip back to Dar es Salaam (we shed a little tear that we could not stay longer, becaus eit was veeeery nice there). The way back was not to spectacular, there was quite little leg- and everything else space (as usual), but it only took us around 2 hours, so we returned early, safe and sound.
Our sunday excursion led us to the beautiful island of Bongoyo, which is right at the shore of Dar es Salaam. I am quite to lazy to write about it now, so once again, I give you pictures. A written piece may follow later.
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| Bongoyo - 22-10-2010 |
work in progress
Anyone interested in the project that i am working on here is welcome to look at The project blog. You can access our editor from there, leave us a comment or just learn, what I am working on over here. Feedback is always welcome.
Weekend trip pt. I
After a week full of work in this crazy, noisy, dirty, smelly (doesn’t sound good to you? Those are only the negative sides, more on the positive things later, but in short: I like this city anyways) city it was once again to explore the surroundings of Dar es Salaam, maybe to find some peace to rest or at least to see some more of this country. So our first stop for last weekend were the Pugu Hills, to be more precise the Pugu Hills Hotel near Pugu. Pugu is a small village around 20km far from Dar es Salaam. It is located on the premises of a nature conservation reservate, where you can only enter with special allowance.
Größere Kartenansicht
So according to my guidebook (the Lonely Planet Tanzania) the plan was quite easy. Go (drive) to the Dalla stop in Kariakoo, board a Dalla heading to Kirasawe there and leave the Dalla around 30 minutes later at an abandoned petrol station. So, that is the theory. Here was unfortunately the first time, that the Lonely Planet was wrong (or at least a bit imprecise). After running around the Kariakoo area for quite some time, looking for Dallas going to Kirasawe (without any positive result) we asked a local guy, and he was (friendly as most Tanzanians are towards strangers) instantly on fire on to help us. He told as, that we first at to take a Dalla to Bugurundi and there switch to one heading to Kirasawe. So he led us to the place, where the Dallas to Bugurundi leave and he tried (with a bit of too much motivation) to get us in one of those, which were already literally packed up to the roof, which resulted in my company leaving in a Dalla, which I was not able to board because of my big bagpack. But the Dalla stopped after a few 100 meters (I don’t know whether it was because of our newly found ciry guide running behind the bus and shouting from the bottom of his lungs or simply because they realized that I was missing.
An average Dalla Dalla
Neverless, after the reunion we finally managed to board a Dalla with a little space left for us, also with the bags. After a 20 minute ride we arrived in Buguruni, some kind of food market area for the locals. It was busy like in a bee swarm and not easy to oversee the area. But then there happened something remarkable, which is in some sense typical (as far as I experienced it) for many Tanzanians. The ‘conda’ (which is kind of the conductor/cashier/mechanic/announcer in a Dalla Dalla) of the Dalla we came with saw, that we were obviously kind of lost in this whole area. So he gave a guy who was hanging around nearby some of his (!!) money (not much, but nevertheless..) to lead us to the place where we needed to go. Of course I am not talking about a fortune here, but simply the fact that he (a guy who definitely does not belong to the rich ones) did this, really amazed me. Anyways, through this help we found the bus, we were looking for (which was a smaller one in this case, not one of the usual 30 seaters (see earlier pictures) but a minivan with 9 seats. Due to the fact that our destination was a bit far away, we had to wait quite some time until this vehicle was also fully packed with people again (I would guess we were 15 people when we left). So, being locked in between luggage, the cabin wall and two school kids I started looking out the window for the abandoned petrol station mentioned in the guidebook. After a quite uncomfortable ride of 45 minutes which nearly killed my legs because of lacking space I actually spotted the abandoned petrol station, Unfortunately, this was also the moment, when the bus already started moving. Due to the high amount of traffic the driver refrained from stopping, so we could leave the bus only at the next station which was almost 5 minutes later, up a hill on a curvy road (I can’t comment on the driving, one need to experience this on your own, but imagine the worst and most aggressive driver you know an multiply the bad feeling u have when you go with him/her in the car by any random number, and you have the average feeling of (un)security I have while driving in a Dalla. This is not to bad within the city, because the roads are jammed most of the times anyways, but outside the city it actually gets kind of dangerous). But nevertheless, we made it, uhm, almost. Only one stop too late.
Lost in the hills
So we waited quite some time, until we could board a bus going back to where we came from. When we finally arrived at this petrol station, I combined the route from the guidebook and a little map I got off the internet, and again with a little help from a local guy, we arrived at our desired stay for the night, Pugu Hills Hotel. So the whole journey took us about 4 hours, which is definitely too much, the way back was way faster because we really took some detours, which we could ditch on our way back (which was less than 2 hours). So that´s the story on how we got there, I will tell on our time (which was A-W-E-SOME) in my next post.