Though I only spent a few hours in Dar es Salaam, I found it a very pleasant and interesting city. Dar es Salaam, while not the political capital of Tanzania, is most certainly a commercial and cultural capital. With a name bestowed by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1860 that means “Haven of Peace”, I also hope that it is a place where all people continue to get along.
Quite unlike Lusaka (sorry Zambia), Dar es Salaam has a proper, lived-in downtown, with a radial grid of streets centering on the port area. The streets positively bustle with pedestrians, hawkers, bicycles and and other vehicles. The centuries-old layers of cultural influence are readily apparent, with Swahili, Persian, Arabic and Indian shops lining the streets. Of course, it took some time to get used to the new greetings I heard – my Tonga “Mwabuka buti!” was rather useless in a place where everyone greeted me with a friendly “Jambo!” or “Mambo vipi!” Crap, what am I supposed to say now!?
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| Cool Art Deco architecture. |
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| House of worship |
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| Dar es Salaam City Hall |
Within the most recent century, Tanzania has been both a German and then a British colony and those influences were also readily apparent as Christiane and I walked around downtown. The buildings from the German colonial period have retained a lot of their funky Art Deco-Bauhaus style, which I really enjoyed. The impressive St. Joseph's Cathedral, right near the waterfront, was built by German missionaries. In the harbour, it was also cool to see the hulking ocean-going ships loading and unloading their high stacks of colourful sea containers.
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| Dar es Salaam skyline. | | | | |
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| Dar es Salaam is one of Africa's busiest ports. |
After spending a fun (though admittedly rather hot) morning walking around, I boarded the sleek and sophisticated fast ferry to Zanzibar.
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