Weekend Two

Saturday is unofficially beach day, so yesterday we went to Coco Beach, the local public beach. A large reef one hundred yards offshore creates huge waves that were a blast to ride inner tubes on! I ended up swallowing a lot of seawater but the thrill of wave surfing made me definitely want to come back again. However the fact that we were wazungu caused us to be swarmed by locals trying to sell us things or just hanging out around us (that I don’t mind). Farther up the beach there are a network of lava cliffs and sea coves that were fascinating to the biology students in our group. We were also ninja-ambushed by a large blue crab. Mat found what looked like a blue rock that possibly was alive, and after prying at it with his flipflop this creature suddenly burst out of the sand, claws snapping and in the attack pose. It was shocking and at the same time really hilarious, because crabs have this burlesque intensity that makes it hard for me to take them seriously. The coves had lots of sea urchins and I saw an eel. When I envisioned Africa before this trip I never could have imagined such a beautiful coastline!
On the return from the beach we got to ride in the coolest daladala in Dar – it’s bright purple, has a big fin on the back, and has “protected by the blood of Jesus” painted on the front. I have wanted to take it ever since the first morning it passed me while I was running. When we saw it in Mwenge we literally ran cheering to the bus! I think it took the drivers off guard, but they were amused. We were waaay too excited about our ride.
Late last night half a dozen of us and Emmanuel and Hamida, two Tanzanian students that we like to hang out and travel with, took us to a club in Sinza. We didn’t actually arrive until 11:00, but the club was practically empty! I was disappointed at first because we were the only people on the dance floor, but around midnight/12:30 a whole lot of Tanzanians began to arrive. Tanzanians don’t dance at all like Americans: they use very controlled and minimalist movements because they are going for endurance – they keep dancing all night into the wee hours of the morning! We danced until 2 am . . . we can sleep in Sunday morning because the group excursion to Makumbusho (a living history museum) isn’t until early afternoon. So, yeah, Dar has some intense night life going on.