Leaving Mombasa, Tanga, and Dar Es Salaam.

One and all,

Carrington and I left Mombasa by bus Monday morning at 8:30 PM. We were a little irked at how little footroom our seats had, but were otherwise pleased. It started raining a few minutes later, so we just considered ourselves lucky to be on the bus. We even left 1 full minute BEFORE the scheduled departure time - a Kenyan first as far as I know.

It was taking a while to get off of Mombasa Island (Geographically it is like the Manhattan of Kenyan. Economically, not so much), but things were moving fairly smoothly, so we didn't complain. That is, until we came to the river crossing and saw what was causing the hold up. There is no bridge. They just haven't built one yet. We had to wait for a small barge to pull up from the other side so cars could load up and be ferried across. It was pretty funny. And then we saw a second barge, big, uncovered, and open to the rain, full of people. Apparently there is a second pedestrian ferry. We counted our blessings to be on a bus and not trapped in the huge mob of people stampeding off the boat to find shelter under the trees.

After a short wait (These days I consider half an hour to be a "short wait"), our bus was ready to load up. Right as we were about to drive onboard, the door opened and everybody poured out into the rain and onto the pedesterian ferry. Apparently it's illegal for anyone but the driver to remain in a vehicle on the ferry. After another "short wait" in the rain, we arrived (fully soaked) on the other side. We had to wander around a muddy tangle of streets for about 10 more minutes to find the bus. We got on board, hung around a bit longer, and finally, right as the rain came to an end, we drove on to Tanzania.

It started raining again about 3 hours later, right as we reached the border. Everybody off the bus on the Kenyan side to go through some paperwork. Everybody back on. Everybody back off two miles later on the Tanzanian side. Everybody wait while the bus gets searched by the authorities. Everybody back on. All in all, 90 minutes. In the rain. The man on the Tanzanian side also tried to scare $50 out of me by claiming that the enterance visa price just went up "the other day" and that I wouldn't be allowed in if I didn't "pay now, in cash." I more or less told him to go to hell, and he agreed to let me through for the "old price, just this once." Carrington experienced the same thing.

Leaving the border, the highway turned back into dirt. The villages we passed every ten minutes were tiny, comprising only a few families and a small farm or two. But as time passed, they began to grow in size and frequency. At each one, a few goods were out by the side of the road for sale. At first it was just fruit, which is one of the most readily available commodities in the region. Sooner or later it grew to charcoal, which requires a little more effort to produce. For one short stretch there were bundles of shale paving stones, a less common natural resource that resulted in a few larger and more prosperous buildings for a short period of time. Then it was back to agriculture for a long while, until a few hours later we began to see signs of a major town.

Despite the interesting economic evidence along the ride, we were pretty disgruntled by the time we found ourselves climbing off the bus in Tanga, Tanzania. It didn't help that we arrived via the back streets and that the bus depot is in one of the sketchier parts of town. Unfortunately, our "Lonely Planet: Kenya" guidebook leaves off at the border, and we didn't have a single friend or contact in town. If it weren't for the help of an Indian hotel owner and friendly Taxi driver, both of whom pointed us in the right direction, we might have ended up completely miserable. Even so, as we flopped down on our uncomfortable hotel beds one (long) hour later, we were pretty sure we had been fools to think that it would be fun to stop in some "smallish town along the coast." We took out books and began to read, resigning outselves to our fate.

About an hour before dark, hunger made itself known, compelling us to return once more to Tanga's "unfriendly" streets. And I am so glad that we did. We found a beautiful and safe little main street, with tons of local shops and eateries, backed by block after block of mixed residential and commercial homesteads. Everyone we met was friendly, and the place was a pedesterian's delight. Sure, the gutters are still the East African standard 2feet deep and only mostly covered, but even Nairobi hasn't solved that problem yet. It was a completely different experience than the mealy part of town we had arrived in, and yet still completely different than the tourist-funded, tourist-oriented, tourist-trap restaurants, shops, and beaches I have seen. I had the impression that when a real, authentic East African middle class evolves (have I ever mentioned that Kenya is ranked third in the world when it comes to having a huge gap between the rich and the poor?), they're going to live in neighborhoods like this one.

All of these positive observations were confirmed by a gentle old man who sat down with us at dinner to chat for half an hour, just to welcome us to town. He said that he was a doctor of traditional medicine, and the conversation covered everything from politics and religion to the history of Swahili and the study of linguistics. And unlike most of the other overly-friendly people we have met, he never once asked us for money, food, or a business partnership. He only wanted to chat. It was fabulous. Even Carrington, who is sometimes a little skeptical with people who don't know any English thought the man was the highlight of his day. We returned to the hotel with lighter hearts, and after I spent an hour or so discussing French (in Swahili) with a nice lady I later discovered to be our hotel manager, I turned in.

No amount of friendly conversation can change the weather, and I had a miserable night trying to sleep in the hot and humid air of the tropical coast. Because mosquitos are a huge problem here, I once again had to sleep with a net over the bed, and it was stifling inside. When the alarm went off at 6 am (half an hour after the first prayer call of the day scared me half to death coming from the mosque just outside my window), I felt like I hadn't slept an hour. A quick shower in the cold water, a quick breakfast of chapati and chai, and we were back on the bus for another 6 hour ride, this time to Dar Es Salaam.

This ride was significantly more enjoyable, as the scenery was both gorgeous and ever changing. Farms of all sorts of produce were visible along the road, as were towns and villages both large and small. Rivers, forests, mountains, and swamps passed by our windows, and despite the heavy rail occasionally soaking through the roof of the bus and dripping on us (still not sure how that's possible...), we were in fairly good spirits when we arrived in town.


I'm 45 seconds from being kicked off, I have to publish this. Things are good and I'll write more soon.
Chris