Kipapeo

This gorgeous picture is of the beach were I spent Saturday. How can a day spent on a warm beach having someone bring you drinks and food not be an amazing day?

Dar is a large port- one of the two main ports for East Africa. (The other being Mombasa in Kenya.) At the mouth of the port/river/inlet is the ferry to the south of the city. As far as I can tell, the north and west of the city are much more developed than the south, but I could be completely wrong on that.

I could bore you with details of the ferry ride, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that it was the shortest boat ride I’ve ever been on and a bridge would be so much more logical. Though it was much better for my slowly darkening skin to stand in the sun. I love mid-day sun. It’s not hot at all.

Once we got off the ferry is when the fun started- we took a dala-dala down the road. (They’re the buses here.) To talk about dala dalas would take an entry in itself, and since I don’t have a picture of one, I’ll leave you with this imagine. Their footprint is about as big as a Suburban, but they look more like mini buses. And they have 4 1/2 rows of seats in them (3 1/2 facing forward, 1 backwards), plus the front seats. And they sit 4 across. So a good mental image to have right now is trying to fit 20 people in a suburban. Now add about 6 or 8 more, just for fun. And did I mention no air-conditioning?

So the beach... the beach was beautiful. It was a typical Dar day- hot, humid and lots of sun, so the beach was the perfect place to be. There are little ‘cabanas’ that are basically thatched A-frames open at the bottom that you get for the day. Right after you sit down a waiter comes and gets your drink order and makes sure that you always have cool drinks. And when you get hungry, he brings you a menu and then food appears. Granted, the quality of the food may not be 5-star since my chicken was essentially raw. Though a few beers helped kill whatever I ate, and the second version of chicken was more than cooked. But since you don’t go to the beach for the food, enough about that…

The water was warm and clear. So warm and so wonderful. It’s real ocean as it should be- no initial chill to the water when you climb in, so you can spend an eternity in the water. And real sand, not pebbles and not cold. Hot sand that you can barely walk on. In other words, a great beach.

There was also a camel for camel rides. I’m not quite sure about the significance of that- I think it was a tourist gimmick. But it was pretty cool. And since this is Africa, and there are always surprises, there were even cows being herded down the beach in the late afternoon.

So in the end, it was one of those days that just feels perfect.

And on a side note, Water was already named Gary by one of my roommates. And since he’s lived in the house longer and named Gary first, his name sticks. (We would hate to confuse Gary with two names.) So Gary’s still alive and well. And I’ve named the spider around my desk- who has an uncanny resemblance to Gary- Water Jr. or WJ for short.