Many travelers we had come across in Africa were reading “The Dark Star Safari” by Paul Theroux, his tale of traveling from Cairo to Cape Town overland. It had first been suggested to by Matt in Qatar, and our friend Sam had given us his copy in Zanzibar. Beth and I took turns reading it, each expressing our annoyance in turn. Where was he going that he was seeing all these “broken, crumbling, dilapidated” cities? Had things changed so much in the five years since he’d written the book?

He described Nairobi as being horribly crime ridden, filled with thieves, murderers, and bandits, with people warning him, “There is a one hundred percent chance of (getting robbed)” if you go to Nairobi. (Beth: After being shot at near the Sudan/Kenya border, he was too scared to leave his hotel room at night in Nairobi. Lauren, Marjona and I went out every night we were in Nairobi – we took taxis everywhere to be safe, but it was not terribly different from many cities we had been in.) Fine, we thought, we know that’s the reputation (even if we found it to be a pleasant city filled with nice people in suits) and that there is a high crime rate. Fine, we’ll give him that.

But then he describes Dar, a city we had maybe spent a total of three weeks in, using phrases like “shanty towns” and “too many people,” saying that the houses looked like “poor sheds.” He said that everyone he met wanted to leave, that people felt hopeless about their future and disgusted with the stagnation of their country.

We thought of Ally, our taxi driver friend, Mukada the Genie and all his happy, middle class friends who had bought us dinner and drinks and told Marjona that she should permanently move to Dar, and Frank and Latifa, who’s beautiful wedding we had attended. This was not the city we’d seen, nor the people we had met. (Beth: We rarely met a Tanzanian who wanted to leave – most wanted us to move there.)  We were even more shocked to read that Dar had sparked this gem of a quote: “Urban life is nasty all over the world, but it is nastiest in Africa. None of the African cities I had so far seen from Cairo southward seemed fit for human habitation, though there was never a shortage of foreigners to sing the praises of these snake pits.”

Ah, snake pits. I see. We must be some of these ignorant, blind foreigners who somehow missed this dismal display of poverty and filth.    

He actually described Zanzibar as “ugly” and as “an island of smelly alleys and sulky Muslims.” That was just ludicrous, but still we read on.

When we got to Kampala, we finally felt like we had proof that this man was either insane or had gone through a wormhole to find a completely different Africa in a completely different dimension.

As we drove in, we saw tall, mirrored skyscrapers, large luxury apartment buildings and well-planned gated communities. Sparkling, dignified bank buildings sat along side modern looking business centers.  Carefully crafted urban planning was obvious - manicured hedges, large parks and smaller grassy areas, and an abundance of green trees were found throughout the city. Cleanly paved roads were bordered by similarly well-kept sidewalks. As soon as we came in, Beth said that the place reminded her of Atlanta, while I commented that the rolling green hills dotted with red roofs reminded me of Glendale, California. A far cry from the barren wasteland Theroux visited. Here was his ghastly description:

“The city was much larger and the new buildings tall but graceless. The older buildings had not been maintained and looked blighted, haunted relics of an earlier time. It seemed to me that the new buildings would go this way too, fall into disrepair and not crumble but remain, defaced and unusable, while still newer ones were built… In Kampala, the big elegant Grindlays Bank had become a horror, the National Theatre had become a seedy monstrosity, the railway station was uncared for. Lacking a center, the city seemed to lack a purpose.” And finally… “With so many trees cut down, the city looked balder, and uglier.”
 
We searched out the places he describes and thought more and more that he had invented these horrors to liven up his account. Though we heard later that he has a “cantankerous” writing style, Kampala was the last straw. We finally wrote him off.

Beth: We understand that things could have changed dramatically in the last five years – and if it did, that’s great.  But before we had come to Africa, our friend Matt had told us to be careful, that he was reading “Dark Star Safari” and that Africa sounded really scary. If we had read this book before coming, we might not have explored the places that we did explore.  Others reading the book now might avoid traveling to Africa – and that would be the bigger travesty.