November 10, 2022, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Sitting on the East Coast of Africa is Tanzania and Dar es Salaam. It is the country’s largest city and former Capital. It is the main coastal hub and port for many cargo ships which supplies not only all of Tanzania but also to the many land locked countries close to Tanzania including, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia.

Dar es Salaam (which means “haven of peace” in Arabic) was founded in the 1860’s as a summer residence for the sultan of Zanzibar. It was developed by German colonists and became the capital of German East Africa in 1896. The city fell to the British in 1916 but it became the capital of a newly independent Tanganyika in 1961 and when Tanganyika and Zanzibar were merged to form Tanzania in 1964. Dodoma was designated as the new capital in 1974.

The port is pretty much a container port for commercial trade so you need transport to get you out to the port gate. HAL did provide a shuttle right to the centre of the city stopping at the Hyatt Regency hotel which is located within blocks of the popular National Museum.

For us we had a wonderful Cruise Critic City Tour today, this was led by the folks at Across Africa which, very fortunately were allowed to pick up their guests inside the port gate. Our tour organized six vans for our tour with about 12 people per van. Before we get into our day, the Zaandam is the largest cruise ship to come to Dar es Salaam and apparently the news coverage was all over the country, from the local papers to the TV Media being present at our arrival. This included at least four separate local groups coming to the port to greet us. This includes people on stilts to drummers and dancers as well as a group showing up with their pet, Anaconda. Yes, Jan did have this largest snake in the world caress her shoulders. In short, this was an incredible welcome.

We jumped into our Van number 4, with guide, Anthony and he was great. Our itinerary included the National Museum, the Village Museum, the Mwenge Carving Market, the Tinga Tinga market and the seaside break. I could go in detail about each of these amazing stops but at this point, time is of the essence, it is like we have four ports in a row once again - no we are not complaining but just don’t want to have too much of a lag here in our updates. 

That said, the National Museum was incredible with much on display but if I pointed out a couple of items (see commentary on the pictures), one would be the oldest skull found in this area, 1.75 year old Nutcracker Man. This shows that this is basically the area where humankind began, now isn’t that crazy. The other piece is a necklace that is 60,000 years old. This is all so amazing to see.

The village museum is the Makumbusho Village is a museum that showcases authentically constructed houses and equipment from the few tribes of Tanzania located in the heart of Dar es Salaam. 

There are over 200 carvers selling their sculptures and crafts at the Mwenge Carvers Market, absolutely amazing. An interesting sidebar here and this for me really. I needed to remind myself here that when we originally planned this voyage and then this excursion we were thinking, wow won’t that be incredible when we get there. The fast forward to yesterday, I had to take some moments from this crazy busy day to really stop and let it absorb in because wow, we are really here. Many of the carvings here are just fantastic and we found a stall covered with walls of old masks, let’s just say we picked up a couple, okay, we picked up four. To continue this sidebar, we have found the people here very welcoming and friendly and really happy people. Yes, of course vendors want you to buy something but when they say come in for a look, they really just want to show you their work. I told one vendor towards the end that, sorry, we have purchased all we were going to purchase and said, “no problem but I want to show you where we make all the carvings, just look”, remember very proud and welcoming people. I said, okay. Well he took me through his showroom and out the back door to an area where, yes this is where the magic happens. There were carvers working away and he showed me where all the raw materials were. Incredible again. I said, thank you, he said that he was happy to show me and then of course attempted to have me buy something but not with any pressure. I only wished I took a few more pics.

The Tinga Tinga market is basically the same thing but with painted artwork, again fantastic.

A great seaside beer break at the end of our day returning to the ship for dinner and then an amazing late show of a local troupe coming to the ship with their show, Tanzanian Boys Circus, with respect we did not video but did take a few pictures, these young men put on a most excellent show and asked that we see more of their work on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

Whew, what a day. I’m writing at the end of our second day here which was totally different and just incredible. Hopefully post that tomorrow… So much happening. Life is good.

There are a few parts to this post, hope you enjoy…

1.75 million year old skull