Riding in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar

Advanced Driving Techniques in Dar Es Salaam

It almost goes without saying that a long motorcycle journey through Africa tests several aspects of your stamina. We had dealt with fatigue by relaxing at some nice places the longest being 5 days in Siavonga, the hitherto unknown "Zambian Riviera".

Now that we were in Dar Es Salaam we decided to have a final "chill out" by spending some time in Zanzibar. It is famous for its high class and expensive resorts mainly aimed at honeymooners and professional couples on their annual 2 week vacation to somewhere with a highly "droppable" name. Cynical..... moi?

Some of you may have noticed the word "final" above. The fact is over 2 months in Africa had got us to the point where we wanted some hot water and running electricity. This meant a return to Europe. Prior to arriving in Dar Es Salaam I had been exchanging emails with a variety of companies and agents all of them claiming that they could get our bikes back to Europe. The most credible was in Nairobi, Kenya another 1,000km up the road from Dar EsSalaam. We were keen to find an agent in Dar Es Salaam to avoid another long trek and border crossing.

The best way of doing this was to put ourselves about and let it be known that we needed to buy a service which in African terms was going to cost a very large amount. We got off to a good start at the Peacock Hotel being introduced to Robert Mfugs. The IT Director and son of the owner, Robert had a finger in many pies and promised to try to help us. This was our best contact made within one day of arriving in Dar Es Salaam so we decided to catch the ferry to Zanzibar where we felt we could spend a few days with a clear conscience.

A little inspired googling threw out the name Baby Bush lodge which looked like it catered to backpackers and was priced accordingly. We caught the fast ferry across to Stone Town, disembarked into a classic African picture of absolute and total chaos, jumped in a prearranged taxi (30mins late but hey!! It was there) and 45 mins later we were sitting down to cold cokes and beef burgers at the American owned Baby Bush. If you want to chill out completely this is the place to go. The Indian ocean is a short stroll away. You lie on large sofas while listening to gentle jazz inspired music, reading and waiting for really tasty locally caught fish for dinner.

Bath warm water and sunshine...and white legs!

Water Melon for the thirsty snorkellers

We finished our short stay in Zanzibar with one night in Stone Town which was really nice to walk around. Birthplace of Freddy Mercury don't you know....and home to the House of Wonder. This is a large and impressively bizarre 3 story building on the seafront which, it was claimed, housed the President of Zanzibar for a while. The architect was a Scotsman whose name we can't remember and who me and Andrew have decided must have been in a traditional Scottish frame of mind no doubt inspired by local hooch when sitting at his drawing board. It was partially knocked down by the Royal Navy in a brief rebellion then rebuilt no doubt to allow some enterprising local to charge $4 entry some 65 years later.

Our return to Dar Es Salaam was via the same fast ferry but across a much rougher sea. Sickness afflicted a high percentage of the passengers. Thankfully we kept our breakfast down....but only just! If you take only one bit of information from all of the meanderings in this blog, let it be this. If you ever go to Zanzibar.....FLY!!

The Peacock Hotel had become our second home. The staff were incredibly helpful and had really taken to this pair of daft muzungus, letting us leave our motorbikes in their secure carpark. I think it helped that Robert was taking a personal interest even to the extent of giving us a lift to meet the agents and shipping company the same day we returned from Zanzibar.

On our way back we were sitting in one of the usual non moving traffic jams in air conditioned comfort while Robert conducted business on his phone chatting away in Swahili. The concentration of hardly moving vehicles is, of course, a perfect retailing opportunity with dozens of enterprising people prepared to sell anything you want. Commonly available are mobile top ups, nuts, fruit, footballs, cutlery sets, ice cream and live chickens. I am convinced that if they didn't have the particular item you needed for your evening meal they would arrange to get it before you had moved 50m further in the queue.

As is to be expected from such a hardy bunch they are not shy at attracting your attention, tapping on the window and staring directly at you for a good time before finally conceding defeat and moving on to the next car. We learned not to offer any encouragement by studiously ignoring them.

This resulted in an interesting episode with a police officer. I was typing an email at the same time as an insistent tapping continued on the passenger window. After a while I glanced up to see a podgy bloke wearing a brown shirt and tie. I continued to ignore him. More time passed before Robert finished his call and with a bad tempered grunt wound down the window before launching into a noisy exchange with podgy brown shirt. How was I supposed to know he was a policeman? From the nature of the exchange I thought the guy was angling for a bribe. Robert confirmed as much in an aside to us but then with a manoeuvre worthy of Houdini, he made one quick phone call, passed the phone across to the "officer" who simply acknowledged an instruction, stood back and waived us on our way. Turns out Robert had previously bribed the guy's boss and had become friendly with him so called in another favour. Africa!

The next day we had to move our bikes to the DHL office so that they could be prepared for shipping. I set off ahead of Andrew and there ensued one of the most exhilarating and dangerous rides I have ever experienced.....anywhere....at any time....ever....ever!

In a fit of whimsy I have tried to imagine how a UK Justice of the Peace would react if he was "beamed" into Dar Es Salaam to try a case of "Dangerous Driving" according to UK rules of the road.....

"So..ehh...Mr Mathers. You are charged with Dangerous Driving and attempted GBH. Please describe for me how you managed to get into this sorry position" said the JP with just the right amount of impatient condecension.

I began somewhat nervously not sure how to explain how, as a perfectly law abiding Citizen in the UK with a clean driving licence, I ended up behaving completely out of character.

"Well.... I had to get across town to the DHL office on my CCM motorcycle because I was going to have it shipped home"

"Yes.....carry on"

"I was reasonably confident of the way and had started the journey from the Peacock Hotel. The traffic wasn't too bad by Dar Es Salaam standards so I only had to do a little filtering and even stopped at the red traffic lights"

The JP's head snapped up from the document he had been reading.

" Just hold it there Mr Mathers. What exactly do you mean by you even stopped at the red traffic lights? Surely this is a basic requirement to which you are expected to adhere?"

"Ah....well...I can see that from your perspective it must seem that way but in fact stopping at red lights is optional..."

I was going to continue but the JP, not quite believing what he had heard, interrupted adding a heavy slice of arrogance to his already perfected impatient condecension.

"Come now Mr Mathers. Are you really trying to tell me that vehicles sometimes ignore the traffic signals. Surely not! This would be a recipe for disaster. Is it not more probable that you have invented this story to help explain your subsequent behaviour?"

I could see that I had started badly. I needed to recover some credibility so aimed for a matter of fact tone, one Brit explaining to another the odd behaviour of a bunch of foreigners.

" It is certainly true that the locals ignore the traffic signals but strangely it doesn't seem to add any more chaos. Everybody just gets on with it. Nobody gets upset. Sure there are lots of horns sounding and I have to confess that I haven't managed to work out the different codes. Sometimes they warn other vehicles but other times it is giving permission. I think after a few months driving here I would manage to work it out but as I have only just arrived I thought the safest thing was just to go with the flow"

The JP was trying hard to suspend his disbelief.

"But surely Mr Mathers, the local Traffic Police take exception to this behaviour?"

I hesitated but decided to press on with the difficult task of explaining the reality of driving in Dar Es Salaam.

"In fact Sir, the police increase the amount of confusion when they appear at junctions. They always direct the traffic completely contrary to the lights and usually it is difficult to make out the hand signals. They consist of languid arm movements accompanied by wiggling fingers. The precise direction of the wiggles is critical to divining what they mean but I think it would take years to learn. Oh and much better eyesight than I have got...haha..."

I could see by the stony expression on the face of the JP that my weak attempt to add a little humour had missed its mark.

I continued with a serious and informative tone.

" Of course there is also the normal police who wear plain clothes and hang about at junctions with the sole intention of identifying some transgression to do with paperwork...you know things like licence, insurance, local tax, congestion zone permits.." trying hard to keep from laughing out loud at this last one..." Their only interest is in getting as fat a bribe as possible. They have no interest in actual driving behaviour"

I paused trying to assess the JP's reaction....mmm....not much. Just a stillness which could have meant anything. Eventually and with very deliberate pronunciation.

"Do please continue this fascinating account Mr Mathers. Perhaps you might indulge me by explaining a little more about your behaviour and a little less on your interpretation of the local law enforcement"

I decided to plunge straight into describing the day's events in the hope that a frank admission would help the still stony faced JP warm a little to me.

"I was fairly sure I knew the correct direction but as luck would have it a young fellow on a DHL courier bike came alongside and started chatting. I asked if I could follow him to the DHL office. He agreed and shot off through the red light....well...I couldn't let him get away. I had no choice. I had to follow him"

The JP interrupted me.

"Was this the occasion of you cutting diagonally across a 4 lane junction from one pedestrian pavement to another?"

"Actually Sir, no. That came a bit later. For the first 5 minutes I was just working very hard to keep up with the DHL guy. He rode like his life depended on not slowing down. Tell me Sir. Did you ever see the movie Speed with Keannu Reeves? You know, the one where there is a bomb on the bus that will explode if they drop below a certain speed? Well,it was just like that. We aimed at every gap in the traffic to maintain momentum and when there were none we bumped up onto the pavements and fought for space with tuk tuks, cycles, other motorcycles and pedestrians"

The JP, exasperation now showing, said

" Was it at this point you rode through a bus stop scattering pedestrians and their livestock in a reckless manner dangerous to innocent parties and, it has to be said, yourself?"

Knowing that contradiction was ill advised I never the less decided to tell the story accurately

" Well Sir, no. That was also a little later when we were heading back to the correct DHL office"

"You mean to tell me Mr Mathers that after your dangerous and irresponsible riding you ended up at the wrong DHL office"

"Ahh...yes Sir. The young courier was going to the airport office. I needed the world cargo office but as it happened the DHL guy was going straight by that office for his next delivery. That was lucky wasn't it?"

"Mmmm....."

"Anyway, it transpires that the road from the airport office leads left away from town and we needed to go right. The obvious thing is to ride along the pavements on the right side of the road until, after about 1 km you get to a junction....this is the one you mentioned earlier Sir where we cut diagonally across it from one pavement to the other.

"And nearly killing the people at the bus stop. When did this occur?"

"Being honest there were at least 3 bus stops. In fairness I have to say that there was very little drama. The DHL guy just peeped his horn (definitely a warning, not a permission) and as it happens the CCM exhaust is quite loud so the queue just made room for us. We hardly had to slow down. It was great!"

With something akin to complete incredulity the JP asked,

"Tell me Mr Mathers, did you at any stage in this sorry episode realise the extent to which you were breaking the law? Did you pause to reflect on just how irresponsible your behaviour was?"

Swallowing nervously I plucked up the courage to explain

"Coming from a country, indeed a continent, where traffic laws are almost universally obeyed and where those who break them can easily find themselves on poor quality TV shows presented by minor celebrities, I can understand why this will come as a surprise but everybody drives this way here. What we were doing was absolutely normal! In fact when we got to to the correct office I felt totally exhilirated. People talk about the freedom enjoyed by motorcyclists. For me, this was true freedom"

The JP just sat there, mouth slightly agape. I decided to finish the story on an upbeat note

"You know Sir, this really validated my choice of motorcycle for the trip. The instant snappy acceleration and sweet handling meant I could aim for the gaps with confidence and quickly steer around the unmarked meter square, 2 meter deep utility access holes which you see at the last second.  But more important was the off road capability. The 21inch front wheel was essential to bump up the kerbs. The balance confidence inspiring when crossing the 6ft deep drainage ditches on loosly laid flag stones, not to mention making progress through the sandy sections on the pavements....."

As I had been talking I became aware that the JP had dropped his head in his hands and was muttering incoherently. He looked and sounded like a broken man. I thought I could just make out what he was saying

"Please....just get me away from here......"

In the same vein as our fictional JP, we continued to explore ways of getting our bikes home from Dar Es Salaam. The DHL option had fallen through and nobody else had much idea. We were on the cusp of driving up to Nairobi when we were introduced to a chap at Emirates Cargo. We met Ahmed at the airport and we're immediately impressed by his attitude and experience. The next day we were introduced to his preferred agent, Jiddawi Abdul, who impressed us even more by his quick grasp of what was needed but particularly as he volunteered that we didn't need to pay him anything until the bikes were in the air. Two days later our bikes were on their way back to London and the following day we were on our way to Manchester.

Removing the wheel and handlebars reduces the size and price!

Our African trip had finished. At least, this phase of the African trip. I am left with a sense of unfinished business. We have done half of Africa, bottom up. I think the next phase should be top down, finishing in.....Dar Es Salaam of course. After all we know a great agent to arrange for return of the bikes and we are now fully qualified Advanced Drivers for the traffic!