Kahama
TANZANIA
The Backroads of Tanzania
By LYNDI
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
I’ve always said there’s a fine line between “adventurous” and “stupid” – the former can turn into the latter very quickly. So when Aaron and I decided we would make our own route from Rwanda to Dar es Salaam instead of backtracking all the way through Uganda and Kenya (and paying visa fees again), we were just hoping for the “adventurous” part.
The real goal was to get us from Kigali, Rwanda to the island of Zanzibar where Aaron and I would finally be celebrating our long-awaited honeymoon. We had reservations on the island starting March 28th, so we set out from Rwanda not knowing exactly who, what, when, or where we were going.
From our Lonely Planet guidebook on East Africa (whose 2009 edition has prices and recommendations nearly identical to its 2006 edition, hmmm… maybe not so much an “update” as a “reprint”) we knew that public transport through western Tanzania is possible – though at times foolhardy.
If you don’t have a map of Tanzania in front of you (and if you do… that’s weird) it is possible to cross from the Rwandan border town of Rusumo to a small city called Benako and get onward travel to Kahama from there. Our guidebook said that this portion would be about 8 hours long, so Aaron and I thought that would be a good stopping point for our first night.
Crossing the border into Tanzania was pretty painless (if you call paying a US$100 visa fee “painless”, that is…), but things got confusing waiting for our onward transportation to the city of Kahama. It was supposed to be waiting for us on the Tanzanian side of the border, but (of course) nothing was there. So we waited. And waited. And waited. I guess only about 2 hours went by, but sitting out in the mid-day sun made it seem longer. Finally a bus pulled up and we all scrambled in and we were off to Kahama.
To our delight the ride was only 4½ hours – possibly due to improved roads since our guidebook was published, and we arrived in the small, dusty, yet pleasant town of Kahama around 5pm. Since this is literally in the middle of nowhere, we decided to treat ourselves to one of the nicest hotels in a town – a place called “New Mongo Inn” with a private room, attached bathroom, hot water, and the best part – cable TV!!! And it would only set us back US$20 – what a deal.
Normally I would scoff at anyone who would want cable television while traveling through Africa – but I’ve been backpacking for 3 years now, so I make no apologies. In fact – the prospect sounded so good that Aaron and I booked two nights with the sole intention of doing nothing except watching mindless movies and television.
Which is basically how our time in Kahama played out. When we did venture into the little town, we realized our basic Swahili was going to need some desperate improvement. Tanzania’s official language is English, though really it only seems to be used in big cities and on important road signs. In small towns, English is not overly useful at all. Which is fair enough, I guess we can’t expect the world to learn our language.
Aaron and I were already pretty good at our numbers, greetings, typical shopping questions (“How much is it?” and “Lower please” coming in handy) and our thank you’s, but we spent a few hours learning objects and food items over a nice, cold Kilimanjaro beer (which wins best beer slogan with “If you can’t climb it – drink it!”).
And I’ll say one thing about Kahama – they are NOT used to mzungus in town. We didn’t just get stares, people would stop what they were doing to point and stare. Children cowered behind their mother’s dresses. The young guys were the worst – constantly pointing and laughing at everything we did. Eating anywhere was a chore because the 5 workers in the little restaurant along with the 5 people eating there would just watch every bite you took, like we were in a zoo or something. Weird. Thankfully, we had our bad movie channel to help hide from the incessant voyeurism.
Another good Swahili lesson was learning Swahili time. We bought our onward tickets to Dodoma for the following day, and the tickets stated that they left at 11:45 in the morning. Great! A sleep-in! But then something in the back of my brain remembered reading that in small towns they may use a different clock known as Swahili time. So in our broken Swahili/English exchanges, we were able to confirm that the bus actually left at 5:45am English time. Not sure why there’s two clocks, but really glad we double checked it.
6 hours later we were in Dodoma – Tanzania’s legislative capital. We wandered the city until we found a nice room at the Royal Inn and then ate our first non-beans-and-rice meal in nearly a week at a little Indian food restaurant. What a treat.
However, again walking the streets in a non-touristy town was a mission. As soon as we could shed one tout, another would take his place. Men on bicycles nearly fell off trying to stop when they saw us so they could sell us a tour, a painting, a hotel room, a busride – anything! Every single guy sold absolutely everything! They would wait for us outside of ATMs, outside of restaurants and supermarkets. We never ventured too far from the hotel so we could thank him for his kind offers and hide inside until he went away. It was rather tiring, to say the least.
But finally we were off to the executive capital – Dar es Salaam. Though Tanzania’s countryside is absolutely stunning – probably the most beautiful of any African country we’ve seen so far, and the bus rides were painless and the roads were good – it was still a daunting task. Limited English, being laughed at all the time, being watched and hawked and touted all the time – was exhausting. It was good to see the backroads, but we’re sure glad to be headed to a tourism mecca in just a short time!
