Second Landing

It’s 8:30 on Sunday night. Peanut and I have been in Dar es Salaam for six hours now. I’ve just finished unpacking my suitcase arranging the few things I brought with me. I’m renting a two-bedroom apartment at a hotel on the beach. I’d just organized my clothes into the wardrobe in the one bedroom, when I discovered the other bedroom was bigger, with more furniture and a better closet. Although the air-con in the “master” bedroom is older and perhaps less efficient, the room is better organized, so I moved all my things over.

After arriving and throwing everything into the apartment, I screwed Peanut’s tie-out stake into the ground on a little patch of grass and set her kennel up beside it. Although I’m fairly certain she’s had enough of her kennel after the flight from Addis Ababa to Dar es Salaam, I figure she has to learn to love it again. Especially since we’ll be moving at least once more before we’re “settled”.

The airports in both cities hit my wallet hard. In Addis, Ethiopian Airlines charged 189 USD for Peanut as excess baggage, despite that I’d already booked cargo space for her, which was only supposed to cost 62 USD. Apparently someone had dollar signs in their eyes and changed their mind. That was the first unexpected blow. The second came when we landed in Dar es Salaam and went through customs where they insisted on charging duty on her and asked me her value. Of course she’s priceless, but I said, she’s a street dog, she’s lucky to still be alive, really she’s not worth anything. The stern customs clerk didn’t seem to find my argument amusing and charged me 100 USD plus a 25 percent VAT, totally to 71,200 TZS (Tanzanian Shillings). Of course they couldn’t take Visa so I had to leave Peanut and my bags behind, exit the luggage claim area, find a bank machine outside and then explain the whole thing to the security guard to get back in. The cab back to the hotel-apartment cost 40,000 TZS, mostly I think because he was uncomfortable with dogs. Surprisingly, Peanut behaved like an angel in the car ride (when not in her kennel, she usually opts to communicate her discontent with a combination of yawn-groaning and arm-biting).

Once secured, I left Peanut to chill alone and walked down to the hotel complex to explore. The Tanzanian sure have understood the tourism concept, especially compared to Ethiopia. Granted, white sand beaches are definitely more attractive than red dessert, but there’s a whole different level of services (and customer service) here. At least so far.
I quickly figured out how to buy wireless access and sat at the Classico Caffè (yes, that’s how they spell it) with an iced frappaccino and some net access. The café is in the middle of a plaza of small souvenir shops, interior decorating stores, a well-stocked grocery store (where I later bought a few essentials, like tea, ground beef, and hangers), an icecream shop, and a number of restaurants, among other things. I took a quick walk around and decided that it’d be a perfect place to explore on Peanut’s evening walk.

We walked around the pier, if we can call it that and then headed down the road the hotel is located on, toward a residential area. Earlier, I had seen two women jogging down the dirt street. While we walked, we met a handful of other runners, a masaii, and at least a dozen SUVs driven by expats. It’s a posh neighbourhood with big garden, bigger houses and through the compound walls, I spotted swimming pools a number of places.

After dropping Peanut off at “home” again, I headed back to the café for dinner- fish and chips (or butter and lemon grilled red snapper, fries and some super yummy courgette and carrots) and a glass of white wine. The plaza was humming with activity. The playground which had been only been occupied by a handful of children earlier was teaming with them. The ice-cream parlour had a steady stream of customers and the restaurants were all full. Sitting on the other side of a little terrace, was the Italian couple who I’d sat beside on the airplane. I watched the sunset over the activity with palm trees and the Indian Ocean in the background before heading home again.

The entire afternoon I’d been cursing my camera. It had gotten switched on in my carry on, and I didn’t notice until I got to Addis, without my charger. There the outlets use the clunky British three-pronged plugs and my charger is North American and the only adapter I have is the mainland Europe model. Tomorrow at lunch I have a mission.

It’s 9:00 now, and I’m going to feed Peanut, then walk her over to reception to find out how much time I should budget to make it through the morning traffic tomorrow. First day of work, here I come!