My Dar Cycle

I was given the opportunity to go on an Afri Roots Dar Cycle instead of going to work as there was a tour with only one other person. I wanted to go on one anyway so the day off work was an added bonus. Mejah was taking the tour as Tende was on Safari.

I got up at 7.30am and cycled to Shopper's Plaza for 8.30am. I met Mejah and Niall (the only customer on this tour) and Emile (Afri Roots trainee) and we went on our way. Mejah said the route was about 18km. I cycle 16km a day to and from work with a laptop on my back so I felt confident I'd be fine.

We set off around the neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam which was really cool as I mostly only cycle on the main roads everyday. The paths were very bumpy and had some really big puddles almost covering parts of the road from the rain the weekend before. Our first stop was at a local doctor who "inherited" from his father how to treat illness. His office was a tiny dark room that had a small hole in the roof which had a beam of sun shining through when we were there.

We were shown a price list of all different illnesses he treats with a price beside each one. We were told if we had any problems in life including love that he could aid it somehow. Right after the doctor, we had to cross a bridge over a sewage river. The bridge looked as if it could drop at any stage.

After alot more cycling we stopped at a Masaai hair salon where Masaai braid hair and their friends hang out until they have to work as security guards at night time. They did a traditional Masaai dance which I did a little jump. The masaai laughed and gave me high fives. I'm not sure if it was because I was good or terrible at jumping or was it just because a white man was doing a masaai dance. Before the dance, one of the masaai asked Mejah if he could ride one of the bikes.
We had to wait about 5 minutes after the dance for him to return.

We set off from the Masaai and our next stop was a clothes market. The market was divided up into 3 sections: African clothes, 2ND hand clothes and new cheap rip-off clothes from China. (If you saw a Puma t-shirt there, chances are it either wasn't made by Puma or it had a tiny fault and was damaged goods.) It was a big maze of a market and we lost Emile. We walked around it for a while looking for him and went back to the bikes where Emile was waiting.

Our next stop was briefly to a "movie theatre", where you can pay 100TSH to watch 5 films that they decide to show that day. They are mostly Indian movies. We walked to a room in the back where they show pornos. This is illegal apparently.

We then cycled to Magomeni and had lunch. I was starving, hadn't eaten all day. I had rice with a beef sauce and kidney beans which I didn't eat. Finally after lunch, we cycled the couple of hundred metres to the Afri Roots office which, conveniently is Tende and Elaine's house, so basically, my home. The bikes were dropped back, Niall got a taxi back to where-ever he's staying and Mejah and Emile went too.

Mzungu, take a picta.

And I was left with some children outside the gate who saw my camera and kept asking me to take a picture of them. Whenever the flash went off they would laugh, run away and laugh again when I showed them the picture on the camera.

This is not an advertisement but a strong recommendation, I would be saying this even if the company founder hadn't put me up for 2 months rent free. If you are in Dar es Salaam, staying in a nice hotel or some Mzungu friend's house, go on the Dar cycle because that is seeing Dar, where people don't hassle you because they want to sell you something. You won't see craft markets or tourist merchandise for sale because the people you see don't live off wooden elephants or ornamental knives. Dar isn't like a European city where there are monuments or famous landmarks to see but this cycle tour is seeing what Dar is.

Since it was Friday, I was playing my usual football game in Mzungu Country. I had 3 hours to rest before heading over. At the start I was tired but as the game went on, I managed to do more running than I usually can but at the end when I got home, my God, did my legs feel it. My left one cramping up occasionally.

Very enjoyable day altogether.