Crossing Tanzania, Part One

We arrived at Dar’s central bus station well before daybreak, eager to get a good seat and stuff our backpacks into the overhead compartments for the two-day long trip across Tanzania to Kigoma, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is a fabled African traverse, plied for centuries by Zanzibari traders seeking ivory and slaves for export to the Middle East and beyond.

A century and a half ago Dr. David Livingstone began his many journeys along the route, making Ujiji, Kigoma’s southern neighbor, his home during his decades-long search for the source of Nile. In 1871 reporter Henry Morton Stanley, on a rescue mission financed by London’s Herald newspaper, trekked with his army of porters for eight months from the coast to reach Ujiji, where he finally found the old explorer and uttered those famous words, “Dr. Livingtone, I presume?”

In the early 1900s, the Germans built a railroad from Dar Es Salaam to Kigoma; a straight shot of about 1200km, it tamed the wild route and opened up increased trade with Central Africa. Although the trains run as slowly today as they did a hundred years ago, it’s still the best way to get to Kigoma, but as our luck would have it the train was booked until August.

We had heard from friends that there are no direct buses to Kigoma, but upon inquiry we discovered there is in fact one company: aptly-named Adventure. Their “direct” service follows a circuitous route that winds north to just shy of Lake Victoria before diving south again to follow the border with Burundi, adding some 400km to the trip.

With no other way of crossing Tanzania in less than a week (one can fly nowadays, but where’s the fun in that?) we reserved our seats on Adventure days in advance to make sure we would get there. Too bad we forgot the cardinal rule of long-distance African travel…

“Majina?”
“Alex and Anita.”

We watched as the conductor’s finger traced the list of passengers and didn’t find our names, and then it became clear – despite multiple assurances that we could pay on the morning of the trip, the man who took our reservations a week earlier had sold our spots because we hadn’t paid the money up front. Panic began to set in; we had just killed a week in Dar waiting for a permit that never came, and now we were all packed up with no place to go! How stupid could we have been?!!

The first streaks of dawn splashed some color onto the scene: two mzungu travelers looking like confused tourists with their two backpacks each, eyes searching the sea of giant buses for some sign of what to do next, surrounded by a yelling, tugging, jostling crush of the unsavory young men who make their livings at African bus stations.

In Africa, if someone (especially an mzungu) needs something, a crowd of three, six, then ten or twelve men will immediately materialize and each man will begin shouting his advice, pulling at your arm and assuring you of the best deal, the best price, the best bus, etc. Dealing with these men can actually be a lot of fun if you have the right attitude, but it is rarely pleasant, and especially not at 6 in the morning.

In the middle of our growing crowd and its chaos, with half-drunk men grabbing our arms and trying to lead us off in different directions, we looked at each other and felt overwhelmed and defeated. So when someone told us there was another company going most of the way to Kigoma, we took a chance and followed him through the crowd to a hulking old bus that was quickly filling up with passengers.

We talked to the conductor and he explained that he was going to Kahama. We had no idea where Kahama was, but he assured us that it was more than halfway to Kigoma, and that we should be able to get a series of minibuses from there to our final destination. Again we looked at each other and were forced to make a decision. “OK, let’s do it.” We paid the money, stuffed our backpacks into the shelf above our heads and sat down flustered and uncertain about the journey ahead.

Normally we like to take the best buses possible; we avoid the death traps, the ones that are too old, too overloaded or have a reputation for reckless driving, and we always try to get decently comfortable seats. It’s usually not a problem; we’ve learned that transport in Africa doesn’t have to be a nightmare, even for my 6’6” frame. But on that morning, as we felt the iron bars of our backrests jabbing our bones through the worn felt of the ripped cushions, we knew we were in for a long, uncomfortable ride.