We received no shortage of warnings about Dar es Salaam. Like Johannesburg (and many other large African cities), it has something of an unsavory reputation, at least amongst travelers. The warnings we had received in advance of our trip to Jo’burg were largely generalized, stock warnings (“don’t carry unnecessary valuables,” “don’t walk around with a bag,” “don’t walk around at night”) – the warnings we received about Dar, however, were disturbingly specific first-person accounts: a couple who had stayed at Mayoka Village in Nkhata Bay at the same time as us had been robbed by their taxi driver; a group of Peace Corps volunteers we met in Iringa warned us about aggressive thieves at the bus station.
Consequently, we arrived in Dar es Salaam with our guards up. I’m pleased to report that we had no problems whatsoever in Dar. We walked around downtown, used taxis, and rode the pubic minibuses without having a single incident.
Our visit to Dar was split in two parts (Dar I and Dar II) and sandwiched our trip to Zanzibar.1 Continue reading A Double Visit to Dar es Salaam (Or, a Zanzibar Sandwich)