January 29, 2011 8:30 pm in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

I'm writing from the lobby of my hotel in Dar Es Salaam, on the coast of Tanzania. It's very bare bones, but $20/night, and the room is clean with its own bathroom. No internet at all, though, so I'll have to go down the street to an internet cafe to post this later.

Tonight I'm in the first city I don't like. There's something shady about Dar Es Salaam. Too many people just standing around doing nothing, but unlike, say Ghana or the middle of Dupont Circle, I'm not so sure they're just minding their own business. And too few of them are women. My feeling is reinforced by the hotel staff and some other guests encouraging us to lock our valuables in the safe, and to go out together, not alone. And from what I can tell, the city is boring too. There are a few museums or churches to see, but it's not the cultural cosmopolitan city I was hoping for. And I'm still not used to neighborhoods that are probably middle class here but would be slums back home. So that's adding a bit to my discomfort.

Tomorrow Abdul and I will hire a taxi to drive us around town seeing what sights there are to see, then we'll probably see some sights on foot. But since Abdul leaves one day before me, I'll probably hang out at the hotel my last day, or at the internet cafe down the street. That'll be boring, but like I said, I don't really like this city, so who cares? Maybe I'll finally make a dent in that 1400 page book I brought with me.

I've been watching Al Jazeera for the past 3 hours, first at a restaurant a few blocks away (which was quite comfortable actually) and now here in the lobby. It's showing live coverage of the protests in Egypt. I probably wouldn't be watching, and would barely be aware of the protests, if it weren't for the fact that Abdul is from about an hour south of Cairo. He, of course, is engrossed with what's going on, because nothing like this has happened in Egypt in his lifetime. So my new friend is interested, and the crowd in Cairo has gathered in the square just outside the Egyptian Museum, where I was last week, so I feel some connection because I was so recently there. Right there. I'm rooting for "the people" because Egypt's president sucks. I guess he's more a dictator at this point, right? But I'm also sad if the reports of looting are true, and sad that some objects at the museum were damaged, and that people were killed.

Our TV watching was briefly interrupted by gunfire out in the street. Ooops -- no, false alarm! It was a large fireworks display from a few blocks away, celebrating the Chinese New Year. That was an unexpected little treat, and of course I think it's fun that people are shooting off hundreds of fireworks from a downtown street. Since Dar is on the ocean, it has a constant breeze, which blew the smoke away and made for a good display (unlike a certain nation's captial I could name, which has no wind and therefore mediocre fireworks displays). [Later, in my room I can hear some chinese singing. It's charming, and maybe it's improving my opinion of this town a little bit.]

By the time this gets posted, the protests in Cairo will probably be old news. But I'm feeling more connected to this specific world event than I usually do when such things happen, so I'm marking the occassion by writing about it. Oh, and Abdul currently lives in Qatar, so he won't be returning home to riots and curfews, but to something normal. At least I won't have to worry about him when he leaves on Monday.

This is a point in my itinerary I wish I'd done differently, maybe taken a longer safari and skipped the coast entirely. This city is not that great and our 9 hour bus ride this morning was dreadful. Much worse than the bumpy road from Nairobi to Arusha, and the misery was compounded by the airing of the two worst movies I've ever seen. At top volume, in english, which almost no one on the bus understood, so I have no idea why they were chosen. (Don't ask what they were, some crap from Nigeria and Ghana I think. They were Mystery Science Theater bad, but without the funny robots to make us laugh.) Of course, when I made my itinerary, I'd budgeted more time to go to the island of Zanzibar (which I'll probably skip now, with some regret because Stone Town is Nikki S's favorite place on earth) and I didn't know Dar would be such a letdown. /Shrug/ ... I expected some dud stops along the way, I guess this is one of them.

Oh yeah, and I lost my favorite hair clip today. :( I brought another one and some hair rubberbands, too, but the one I lost held my hair just right and I will miss it.

Hmm, maybe I'll like Dar more tomorrow when I'm less tired and not losing stuff.