Thursday, February 22, 2007

10lb Moustache's Guide to Travel: Destination: Tanzania!

Hey folks. It's the Moustache here. Well, many of you have noticed that I'm somewhat notorious for going to random exotic places, getting belligerent and embarrassing most of America. It's something we have all come to expect, but if you're anything like the romper stomper American I am then you'll love this new column.

Basically, I will be covering various places all over the world and discussing the many advantages and disadvantages to being a disrespectful American in such places.

Ok, for our first stop...TANZANIA!!!

Resting in the beautiful eastern coast of Africa along the Indian Ocean is the Swahili speaking nation of Tanzania. Once a German colony that was later lost to the British when those losers lost one of those World Wars they started, but enough about Germany. According to Wikipedia, Tanzania has everything for the adventurer sort of traveler and is dirt cheap for the drinker traveller. In the north-east we have Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain, in the north west we have the Great Lakes of Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika and there's always the beautiful Island of Zanzibar just offshore for you seclusion types.

Diverse with so many ethnic groups your head will explode will ensure that you can get all sorts of amazing stories about different tribes ruthlessly killing each other for no reason other than sheer bloodshed and glory. English is mainly spoken in the country for all of you unwilling to pick up a basic understanding of Swahili. And for all you hipsters out there there is a thriving music community in the style of Bongo Flava and you may just run into the local favorites Mr. Nice or Cool James.

Now on to an issue of warning in Tanzania. Apparently in recent years there have been reports driving men to live in fear of the night. A demon bat known to the locals as "Popo Bawa" has been reported on numerous occasions to transform into a man and raped men in in the main city of Dar es Salaam and is driving men to sleep in big groups or to smear themselves with pig oil. Sound too disgusting? Too homophobic to sleep with a bunch of men huddled together? Well, I have a few solutions to help you get over this minor problem.

1. Just plain stay out of Dar es Salaam. In my experience travelling the countryside breathes such a better atmosphere anyway and you're more likely to meet people that will rape you instead of demons, which in my experience is much easier to deal with.

2. Don't piss off the Tanzanian witches. They unleash the bat to attack their opponents, so it might be in your best interest when you're getting your palm read not to mention that giant mole on her face or that certain smell of bad cheese that is emanating from her mouth.

3. Use this whole "raping bat demon" to your advantage. Apparently the women are also being abused, but there doesn't seem to be any complaint on their end. Say you find a hot village girl who married some douchebag at the age of 15 and is now about 20. You two hit it off, get some drinks, head back to her place, but the douchebag husband comes home. "Oh shit!" you say to yourself, but don't worry. Just pretend like you are the demon bat and jump out the window into the night. I guarantee the douchebag husband will be so scared about you possibly raping him, you'll be good to come back and use that sexy village woman however you please.

So next time you're in Tanzania you should be pretty much set. So get out and enjoy all the beautiful things Tanzania has to offer!

-10lb Moustache

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