20250108 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 44/96 - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 44/96 - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - We Learned How To Pronounce Tanzania

We docked on the Tanzanian mainland today. We didn't know what to expect from the exotic-sounding Dar es Salaam and were quite surprised to find a thoroughly modern city of more than eight million people.

Unlike Zanzibar which is primarily Muslim, there is a large Christian population here and we saw multiple churches and many women in Western clothing and without head coverings

Cultural dancers welcomed us as we arrived

Our tour was Dar es Salaam Highlights, a 5.5-hour bus tour with stops at two museums and an art village. We boarded bus #6 and were off for adventure.

They have an electric rail system in Dar es Salaam

The brand-new rail station, completed in 2024

Interesting architecture was everywhere

The wall around the presidential palace - no photos were allowed but this somehow found its way onto my phone

Our first stop was the National Museum of Tanzania

A series of presidential cars - you can see the change between British and German rule

A random, recycled T-Rex

The main building

It was being remodeled so all the displays had been moved to another building

A large display memorialized the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania

We saw this but don't know its significance

We walked through displays about Tanzania's history

The slave trade was important here

A huge aircraft propeller saved from a failed flight attempt

The flag was adopted in 1964 when Tanganyika and Zanzibar combined to form Tanzania

All the Tanzanian presidents including the current president on the lower right

The following sculpture was used to help educate girls about their bodies and womanhood. The beads around the waist area at the bottom represented beads that women wore to keep their husbands informed. If the beads were white, she was ovulating so romantic encounters would likely result in a baby. If they were red, she was menstruating. If the beads were any other color, that was the green light to go for it. We didn't hear why it was designed as a drum. That could have something to do with the rhythm method of birth control. (I am contractually obligated to state that the last joke was provided by a fellow passenger, Terri Lacy, and used with permission)

We left the museum and went to our next stop. Tinga Tinga is a style of art that uses bold strokes and loud colors and is uniquely African. We visited a Tinga Tinga art cooperative and browsed the wares.

The art was interesting but it didn't match our design aesthetic so we came away empty-handed

Lots of artists were there, working on pieces

From there, we drove to another museum, Kijiji cha Makumbusho/ Village Museum, Mikocheni. The Village Museum is an open-air museum with different styles of traditional buildings on display. Tembe, Msonge, and Banda designs were on display. The designs were used by more than 120 different tribal peoples who were the early inhabitants of what would eventually become Tanzania.

A Msonge hut with its round shape and cone-shaped roof - typically for the senior wife

A Temba hut, rectangular with a V-shaped roof had a room for the husband and a roof for each junior wife - rooms could be added when a new wife joined the family

Adolescent boys had their own hut

Mixing the old and the new

A buried home for weather protection and security

A Banda hut with a flat roof - some crops were grown on the roof

The final exhibit was a cultural dance show.

A wood block xylophone

A very basic cymbal

Drums were the primary instrument

Of course, Arlona was able to try her skills out.

We also learned something about the name Tanzania. We have always heard it pronounced tan-zah-NEE-uh. Over the past four days, two of our guides used that pronunciation. Two other guides used the pronunciation tahn-ZAHN-ee-uh. Today, we asked whether our pronunciation was incorrect. The bottom line is that both are correct. The way you pronounce it is based on your local accent. With our visit complete, we boarded the bus for the ride back to the ship.

We had derived over this bridge, the Tanzanite Bridge honoring Tanzania's contribution to the gemstone world - tanzanite

Askari Monument recognizing the African soldier

Uhuru Street Clock Tower, built by citizens in 1961 to celebrate Dar es Salaam becoming a city - it is mile zero for all distance measurements from Dar es Salaam

We returned to Sojourn and at lunch out on the back deck.

A nice beach with a wrecked ship

Dar es Salaam Port lighthouse

I forgot to post Arlona's Zanzibar find. We spotted this at a small, local jeweler in Zanzibar and it really represented this trip to us, so here is Arlona's newest addition to the jewelry arsenal. African animals.

Left to right, rhino, lion, elephant, cape buffalo, giraffe, plus elephant earrings

They had an awesome ring too, but it appears that regular shoppers in East Africa all have tiny fingers as all the rings were several sizes too small. There was no way to size it, so, no ring. Oh well.

Last night, we were informed that we had reservations for Solis tonight. We don't know why or how since we didn't make reservations for Solis, but we'd be foolish to turn it down so guess where we had dinner tonight? Solis. We enjoyed the Porterhouse for two and had friends join us, so it made for a very nice evening. With both of us bordering on a meat coma, we decided to skip tonight's show, Barricade Boys - four singers who had appeared in Les Miserables. We headed to the suite for the evening.

Tomorrow is the first of three sea days as we work our way east to The Seychelles on January 12.