It was a long way from home! and other Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Transportation Tips

'Mode': TO
Category: Airplane
Getting TO/AROUND: Upon graduation from university in Fredericton with my electrical engineering degree, I had already decided that I just wanted to travel and see the world. Not having any actual job experience, about the only option available was to volunteer for a 2-year contract job in the developing world, organized by the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), an organization funded by the Canadian government (similar to the American 'Peace Corps' or the British 'Volunteer Service Overseas'). The title was a bit of a mis-nomer, because everyone had already finished their formal education when they joined. All successful applicants were to be paid the same wages a similarly qualified local would get for their particular job. On my application, I simply specified 'Africa' as my desired location and after they did the usual cursory psychological tests (apparently I'm not crazy after all!), I was soon confirmed as a lecturer in electrical subjects at the Zambia Institute of Technology in Luanshya, Zambia. After reporting to the University of Western Ontario to undergo 2-weeks of preparations with the remainder of the 1972 batch of 110 recruits, we were taken to Toronto to fly out together via a chartered Air Canada 'stretched' DC-8.

It was a fantastic way to have my first overseas flight - with a bunch of mates and free drinks served the whole way! We watched the Atlantic Ocean go past and landed in Zurich, Switzerland to refuel. Because we were not even allowed off the aircraft, I stood in the open doorway to take in the Alps and at least breathe the fresh air before we were off again. Over the Mediterranean and then it seemed like nothing but the Sahara Desert below us for hours - I remember being awed by its size because we were travelling at 550 mph! Finally, touch down in Dar es Salaam in the darkness - it did not matter, I was in Africa at last!

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'Mode': TO
Category: Airplane
Getting TO/AROUND: Following our initial 2-day indroduction to Africa, we headed back to the International Airport where members of our group went their separate ways to the various countries to which they had been assigned. Some had last minute changes because it had been decided that those slated for Uganda would not go there because this was during the upheaval when 'Big Daddy' Idi Amin created turmoil there by evicting the East Indian population from the country. The same thing happened regarding Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where the 'bush war' against white supremacy also broke out in 1972. To make things worse, one member of our party who had been due to head there was named Ian Smith - the same name as the leader of the breakaway white-ruled colony! During my 1973 return to Tanzania, I spent a couple of nights with him in his new posting of Moshe, at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

This is the airport scene that greeted us from the outside departure upper deck as we prepared to leave. Only later did I realize that these two airplanes are among the most famous work-horses in the world! The Canadian-built de Havilland Twin Otter (left) is a very rugged bush plane, used in all conditions. It is renowned for the missions flown by a Canadian company to the South Pole in both 2001 and 2003, to rescue sick researchers based there. With the winter temperature reaching a high of only -57 C (-70 F), the normally-used American military Hercules aircraft were unable to deal with the conditions. I ended up flying in Twin Otters a few times to remote jungle locations a few years later while working in Papua New Guinea. At right is another workhorse, a Dutch-built Fokker F-27 Friendship, a type which I also used many times on scheduled Air Niugini flights to various airstrips all over PNG. The first flight for this model took place in 1955 and it saw service worldwide over the following decades. With 793 of these aircraft having been produced until the early-1980s, it became the most successful turboprop airliner in history.

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Bus
Getting TO/AROUND: After hitch-hiking from central Zambia to Mbeya, Tanzania near the border, I decided to catch one of the local busses from there. It was while waiting for the Zambia/Tanzania border post to open in the morning that I met up with my new Austrian travelling buddy, Josef, shown examining the beaches of Dar in the 3rd photo. The other view of the bus terminal was taken after we had boarded our long-distance bus, with my backpack thrown up onto the roof like everyone else. Although the drive to Dar es Salaam took about 20 hours, we were able to take-in beautiful countryside on the way as our route passed through Iringa and Morogoro. For meals, like most passengers, I was content to buy cooked treats off the locals in towns along the way as they rushed up to the open windows when we pulled into various stops.

That trip worked out so well that I also took a bus from Dar es Salaam to Moshi, at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This one was not quite as enjoyable, thanks to a 10-hour delay in our departure, which meant that we rolled into Moshi at 2 AM. I had no idea where anything was or where my buddies lived, so I ended up spending the night under the stars in my sleeping bag, spread out on a big lawn beside the sidewalk - awaking to locals staring at me in the morning as they went about their business!

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