TAN: IDDI BILI

Today was the second day of national holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. We awoke to a morning of downpour. It finally started to let up a little as we were leaving the house to get Arnaud and Lilia over to the port to take the ferry to Zanzibar. The touts at the ferry terminal could see us coming a mile a way and chased the taxi along the entry road to where we finally stopped, all the while yelling out the rates and departure times for the boats they were hustling for.
Chantal, Sandrine and I headed over to the office to find Maina there, but no Internet connectivity. We headed out in search of lunch and an Internet cafe. Quite a bit more was open and we were able to get a delicious lunch at Retreat, the “exclusively veg” restaurant. As we were finishing up, a rush of folks appeared who all ordered the lunch Thali. Must try it next time.

The flame trees were in bloom.

The Internet cafe around the corner was nice, but the .Mac webmail wasn’t working, so my hour wasn’t as productive as it could have been. Headed back to the office to find the connection there was up and running. We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our various projects, finally wrapping up a little after 8 p.m.
We headed out in search of some dinner and decided to try out the Ethiopian restaurant, Addis in Dar. It took us a little while to find a taxi driver who had any idea of where we wanted to go. The restaurant was amazing, more of a cultural appreciation center than anything else. There were two rooms filled with artifacts, textiles, musical instruments, jewelry and books. The outdoor dining area was very well decorated with red umbrellas shielding all of the lights. We had a delicious meal of five different lentil stews served on a giant “crepe.”
It was starting to rain as we finished, so the parking attendant scurried off in search of a cab for us. He came back with a very taciturn driver who wasn’t impressed with our trying to bargain with him. Eventually we got everything sorted and were on our way. Thus far his car wins for being the most musical. Every time the clutch was depressed, an odd plucked strings noise was produced. It was very hard to keep from laughing.