Tanzania - A First Impression

Left for Tanzania on Monday, the plane punctually left at 3pm and we also arrived very puntually - a good start my other trips to African countries don't always go so well.

The flight was pretty uncomfortable as we traveled in a small Beoing 737 128 seater and there was little if any leg room in normal seats, however we got the seast right at the back of the plane and so it was even smaller and the seats can't tilt back to give us a better posture.  Otherwise it was a smooth flight.  We sat next to a white woman who has lived in Dar for almost 14 years and my boss was keen to get some local intel on the city.  We asked many questions from politics to ecnomics and the price of real estate.

As far as we can tell from what she has told us, Tanzania is very much like every other country in Africa (we exclude SA from this classification for various reasons), the government policies are temperamental, people will try to cheat us, government officials are corrupt and generally speaking the population has started to take a dislike to more Chinese presence.  Fun.  More importantly it seems being a "outsider" trying to buy real estate can be rather challenging due to red tape and other rather opaque issues, we can also expect more than frequent power failures.

We arrived at the airport in Dar Es Saleem, the biggest, most populated and centre of economic power in Tanzania, however as we flew over the city we can see that there are little light lighting the city and I was a little surprised by that.  The city was what I had expected after seeing the night lights.  The traffic and roads are choatic with little or no rules much like parts of China and most of South America. Traffic lights can only be found in the central districts and we took a long time getting to our hotel in the Embassy district.

We were picked up by one of my bosses associates from China Steel.  Apparently while there is a large Chinese presence here in Dar, little of them are there as individuals most of them are with big Chinese construction companies such as himself. 

We arrived at the Golden Tulip hotel - it's more than adaquete, everything here tells of past glories that once was.  Everything is still rather impressive but signs can be seen everywhere that renovations and upkeep of the buildings are kept to a minimum.  It was a rather impressive swimming pool and we're right on the beaches as well, our room costs $135/night and including breakfast it's not bad at all.  The room is what I would expect, two beds, tv, shower/bath, fridge and something that not everyone would appreciate toilet papers. :P

Went for dinner at the Chinese restuarant next door, and impressed by the selection and quality of the food.  On par with JHB and with the added benefit of having good seafood fish selection.

The next day (today) we met with the Director of the TIC (Tanzania Investment Centre) and we organised the schedule for the next few days, gathering data and stuff. I also phoned up a few estate agents to get a rough idea of what the market is like here.  I'm actually waiting for the first one in another 45 minutes at our hotel room.  This will be interesting.