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As promised, this is Part III of Vacation… and yes, contrary to some belief, I am working, not just vacationing!
Despite some apprehension about the bus from Lushoto to
Tanga, the
“Umba” turned out to be the best bus experience in Tanzania thus far. Why? (1) The Umba was surprisingly punctual, (2) it did not stop for unduly long periods of time in the towns along the way, (3) the driver was actually quite cautious and slowed down around the sharp corners, and (4) best of all, the windows too high for the touts to reach up and open (this, however, did not prevent them from propping things on a stick and shoving them in your face…). All in all, a rather impressive, even comfortable, journey………and for only 4500 Tsh.
Arriving in Tanga at the scheduled time, our good luck continued and we were able to hop onto a bus leaving for
Pangani in half an hour. Alas, this bus (name unknown) was not nearly as impressive as the Umba. The anticipated 1 hour ride to Pangani turned into almost 2 hours, but definitely felt much, much longer. What was impressive about this bus was that it did not shake itself apart on the less than ideal road. Also impressive was how my feet swelled up due to the vibration of the floor, and how my head felt like one of those HK spring-toys you put on the dashboard of your riced-out car. More impressive was just how dirty our backpacks became during their shaky ride under the bus……
Now this last part of our vacation was meant to entail peaceful relaxation involving no physical exertion, good seafood and perhaps the sipping a pina colada or two. At any rate, we arrived in Pangani, excited at the prospect of lounging on fine white sand beaches and swimming in sparkling turquoise water.........Sadly the predominant colour of the beaches in Pangani was brown - brown rocky beach with brown choppy water, and thousands of brown coconut shells lying on said brown sand. Actually, I lie - the ocean is quite blue from a distance (i.e. on top of the cliff) and the beaches on the southern part of Pangani looked quite white from where we were staying (might have just been wishful thinking though...).
Anyway, we resisted the urge to immediately return back to Tanga (largely due to a healthy dose of fatigue) and decided that we would make the best of it and explore the town. Being the only guests at our "beach resort", we should have clued into the fact that maybe the Northern beaches of Pangani weren’t the best place to be…… but we marshaled some energy and trudged the 3.5km to Pangani town. Again the lack of tourists was emphasized as upon attempting to ask for directions to the tourist office, we were brought to the offices of CCM (
Chama cha Mapinduzi), the ruling political party in Tanzania. Eventually we meandered down to the riverfront (one of the few places in TZ where ocean meets river) where we met a local guide named Issa, who proceeded to answer
“yes, yes” to any question asked.
- Q. Are the beaches on the Southern side nicer?
- Q. Where can I rent a bike?
- Q. How much does it cost to go on a river tour?
After a mixture of broken English, Kiswahili and sign-language, we managed to communicate that we were hungry, tired and wanted transport back to the beach resort. As there were no taxis in Pangani (again, do tourists even come here?), after eating cold rice and beans, we headed back to the resort on two of the most uncomfortable bikes ever made in the world. The combination of the very hard narrow seat and the rocky uneven dirt roads was unbelievably painful (am I ever glad that I am not male). Note that it was not a difficult decision to forego the planned next day cycling trip of 14km to the Southern beaches, no matter how much nicer…
Having decided to leave Pangani early in the afternoon, we gingerly cycled back to town the next morning to drop off the torture devices. After “confirming” that the bus for Tanga left at approximately
saa kumi na nosu (Kiswahili for 10:30, which in our time is 4:30pm), we did some exploring of the non-descript little town. We discovered more massive heaps of coconut shells (what do they do with them?) but little else of much interest. Marlous, rather unimpressed with the whole 2 day exploit, took only one photo to remember Pangani by…
Fortunately, by the time we arrived back at the resort it was almost time to catch the shaky bus back to Tanga. Impressively, it arrived at the expected time and somewhat surprisingly, it did not seem to shudder and quake quite as much as it did en route to Pangani. Could be because we were standing this time? At any rate, we arrived back in Tanga and booked seats to Dar on the first bus in the morning, the
Raha Leo Apparently Mother Nature decided that it was rainy season after all and it started to pour that night. At first I wasn’t that upset as I figured my backpack could use a good rinse…… but as the downpour continued to increase, and it started to rain
inside the bus to Dar, I wrapped my khanga more tightly around my head and grumbled that perhaps the Lonely Planet had led us astray in extolling the virtues of Tanga/Pangani… Upon arrival in Dar, my mood did not noticeably improve as we exited the Raha Leo and promptly stepped into a large pool of black water.........
Karibu Dar es Salaam (Welcome to Dar) LOL
And so here end the adventures of my 2 week vacation...... what a journey! I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience all that I did - and that was only a small part of Tanzania. More places to see, more stories to tell!
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