This week’s travel dream: An urban traveler’s view of East Africa

For an unexpected African experience, skip the safaris, said Bert Archer in The Washington Post. On this side of the Atlantic, we can too easily become fixated on the chance to glimpse lions and zebras. “When we dream of Africa, we see animals, not people.” But many of us get to know Europe and Asia through their cities, and Africa should be no different. During a recent 10-day tour through the East African nations of Ethiopia and Tanzania, my boyfriend and I spent most of our time in four urban centers. I’m sure there are some travelers who’d prefer “looking at big cats in the company of rich bucket-listers.” Not us.

The people of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, are almost “aggressively friendly.” Just walking the streets, we twice fell into conversation with pairs of strangers. The first time, we paid about $2 to share a round of peanut tea; the next time, our new friends bought us coffee. Ethiopia is in fact coffee’s birthplace, and a visitor gets many chances to sit in on a coffee ceremony that’s central to Ethiopians’ daily life. The coffee is ground and roasted while you sit in a circle on stools, but the ceremony is “at least as much about talking to your geisha-like server and your fellow caffeinators,” who are usually men. One day, we soaked up the energy at Mercato, Africa’s largest outdoor market, and marveled at “gorgeous” 16th-century religious paintings at the national museum. “I don’t know what I thought was happening in Ethiopia in the 16th century, but this certainly wasn’t it.”

“It’s not just the ancient culture of Ethiopia that repays your attention.” Moshi, in northern Tanzania, has “a sort of Brooklyn vibe,” with countless artisans selling wares to tourists. In nearby Arusha, located in the shadow of Africa’s “most picturesque” mountain, we fell in love with the street music called bongo flava. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, we filled one day and a couple of nights just wandering the streets. Near a major ferry terminal, we found a white-sand beach, and “there were seashells everywhere, the best I’ve seen” anywhere. Of course, the next local we met got to hear all about them.

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At the Arusha Coffee Lodge (elewanacollection.com), doubles start at $350.