Bus to Dar es Salaam

Loshoto to Dar Es Salaam - Thursday

After a greasy omelet breakfast we left St. Benedicts to catch a bus to Mombo. We had heard that we could take a dalla dalla (Toyota van) to Mombo for 1,000 TSh (about 90¢) then catch an express bus to Dar. We found one near the front of the queue and hopped in. We knew that the dalla dalla wouldn’t leave until it filled up so after ten minutes or so of waiting Marie hopped out and started soliciting fares. Mombo, Mombo! she would shout, gesturing her arms toward the van. The driver, conductor and two assistant conductors howled in laughter, but they egged her on.

Soon we had our load … ten fares and four busmen, so off we went. About 300 yards from the bus depot a heavyset man with two skinny guys flagged us down. They had luggage up ahead so we drove another 100 yards and stopped while he ran up to a house to get the luggage. After a while he came back with the luggage. The assistant conductors scurried to untie the rope holding liftgate closed. Some of the luggage crammed in earlier fell out. Eventually the jammed everything back in and retied the rope. We now had thirteen passengers plus the busmen.

About a kilometer down the road three women and two kids flagged us down. We loaded them in and started off. We now had 21 of us in the van. Within minutes the fat guy started arguing with the conductor. We learned that he was upset that there were so many people in the dalla dalla and wanted a discount. They haggled for a while, but soon the fat guy and two skinny guys got off the van. This meant we had to do the luggage thing again.

The ride continued this way all the way to Mombo. At one point we had 22 adults and two kids on the dalla dalla. It reminded me of college trying to see how many people could fit into a Volkswagen beetle. The ride took almost two hours instead of the one hour it took us to come up the mountain. When we go to the depot we had to negotiated with the driver to take us the 1 km extra to the Liverpool Hotel where we could catch an express bus to Dar.

At the Liverpool, which is actually a restaurant, not a hotel, we were greeted by a tout who wanted to arrange a bus for us. There are no places to buy tickets at the stop, so you have to go up to each bus, find out if there are seats, then negotiate a price. As soon as I started to approach each bus the tout would push ahead and shout something to the bus conductor. I’m pretty sure he told them the price he wanted us to pay, an inflated 15,000 TSh each. We ended up taking an ordinary, semi-express bus at the inflated priced. We should have just taken an ordinary bus from Loshoto. Oh well, I guess you can’t always beat the pros.

Shortly after the bus left Mombo we stopped and picked up a Maasai family of three, mom, dad, and young daughter of perhaps seven or eight. Dad sat in a seat at the back of the bus. There were no seats for Mom and girl, so Mom sat on a bucket in the aisle slightly ahead of Marie. Daughter stood behind her facing us. She was a beautiful dark rosewood color with big eyes and unbelievably delicate bone structure. She would just look at us with a curious, wistful, hopeful gaze. This discombobulated Marie to the point where we traded seats and now the girl was staring at me.

Soon the girl sat on the corner of my seat. With each mile she’d sneak a mm more of cushion until finally she had a perch. I didn’t mind. She had won me over. As it turned out we would be seatmates for about three hours. About one hour into the ride I had an idea. I pulled out our travel guide that had quite a few color photos of various Africa places and people. As I turned the pages her fingers lingered over each picture. She said nothing, but I could tell she was drinking in the images. When we came to a photo of Massai warriors in full dress she suddenly said something, in Maasai I guess, and poked her mom.

Mom turned and looked, and got intrigued by the process. The next thing I knew the two ladies in the seats opposite us began craning their necks to look at the pictures. As they saw something of interest one or the other or the girl would giggle, or jabber with the others. When I came to a section of animals the little girl started pointing to the ones she knew and said their names. On others her mom would tell her the name and have her repeat it. I wasn’t really part of the process except as a page turner. It was fun to be a semi bystander in the process.

At one of the stops our semi-express bus made along the way I bought two saran wrapped tubes of roasted cashew nuts. I handed one to the girl and Marie and I shared the other. Mom saw the package and freaked. She handed it to the two ladies opposite us. The ladies told the mom it was okay. They took some nuts and gave the rest back to the girl. Mom and daughter shared them. When they got off the bus they said asante (thank you!).

Dar es Salaam
We reached the Ubungo Bus Station on the outskirts of Dar about 5:30 and hired a taxi to drive us the 8 km from the depot to the Jambo Hotel where we hoped to stay. The temperature was at least twenty degrees hotter than Lushoto and the humidity about as high as it can be without raining.

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