Kilwa Day 1: The chaotic journey from Dar Es Salaam

The journey to Kilwa is arduous. In fact, it takes so long that I had to wait until a three-day weekend to undertake it. While Kilwa Masoko has a small airport, it only receives charter flights, which means that any visitor to Kilwa Masoko must either hire a car or catch the bus from Dar Es Salaam. As far as I know, this bus only leaves at noon and the bus back leaves at six in the morning, which effectively means there is no way to make this trip in less than three days – unless, I suppose, one were to put inordinate trust in the notoriously dangerous and irregular daladalas.

I left Nairobi on the seven o’clock flight on Friday morning and arrived at Julius Nyerere Airport before nine, which gave me plenty of time to allow for things to go wrong. For one, I found I could not get data despite being quite confident that roaming was included in my Safari.com package. I thus had to battle my way back into the terminal so I could use Uber, only to discover that what the insistent local drivers kept telling was true: God created Dar Es Salaam Uber drivers as a punishment to humanity. The first driver I found told me his car was not working, the second asked me to walk to an entirely different terminal to meet him, and the third tried to renegotiate the price of the ride. Browbeaten, I returned to the official taxi drivers whose overpriced services I had spurned.

Wading our way through Dar Es Salaam’s intense traffic, we made it to the bus terminal on Mbagala Road a little after ten. The driver spotted a man in a blue uniform and handed me over to him. I had some doubts, but these were momentarily assuaged by the uniform, so I let this man hand me over to yet another man, who started leading me away from the station. When I asked where we were going, he replied that the bus was full and that we were going to the overflow van. This immediately set off alarm bells in my mind. “I will go ask the bus drivers if they are really full,” I said and turned around abruptly.

My new companion did not let me go easily. He followed me around and when he saw me talking to the bus drivers, he finally revealed that the bus did not leave from Mbagala Road but from Mbagala, a neighbourhood in the southern outskirts of Dar Es Salaam. Some of the men standing around confirmed this, but I hesitated to take a taxi there as my interlocutor was now recommending. Even if what he said were true, I would not forgive his trying to dupe me. When he tried again to lead me somewhere else, I told him I did not need his help and wandered around the station by myself.

My conversations with the bus drivers and the men standing around the station finally convinced me that the bus really was leaving from Mbagala and not Mbagala Road. One of the idlers recommended I take a motorbike, which I reluctantly accepted. I reasoned that Mbagala was not all that far away and that anyhow, I had little choice if I wanted to make my bus on time. Fortunately, the driver was gentle – possibly because he was carrying two people instead of one, as the idler decided to ride with us to show me the right bus and secure his tip.

When we arrived in Mbagala, I was relieved to find that the bus I was told about existed. I somehow managed to muddle my way through my conversation with the ticket salesman and continued to use my smattering of Swahili as I waited for the bus to depart. As the only white person far and wide, I attracted much attention from all the salesmen in the neighbourhood, some of whom took it as a personal affront and evidence of my mzungu ungenerosity that I really did not need headphones, a power bank, a phone charger, or a memory stick. The food vendors, who all wore little chef hats, found it incredible that I had eaten already (I had packed a lunch) and had no need for their chips.

At long last, the bus departed – not at noon as foreseen but at half past twelve. It only drove a few paces, however, before it stopped at a gas station to fuel up for the ride. This was right about when I started to wonder whether the bus would only take five hours, as I was told, considering a direct ride without any stops is said to take four. My suspicions were correct. The mere attempt to get out of the city lasted the whole duration of the Bollywood movie that was playing on the overhead screens. Unable to tear my eyes from the TV, I watched as a man saved a baby from being cut in half with a machete, nursed the boy from paraplegia, avoided seduction, fought a mobster for his beautiful violin-playing daughter, went to court, fought in a boxing ring to raise money for the court expenses, and so on and so on. The best part of the film was the Swahili dubbing, which consisted of one man voicing all the characters and providing a running commentary of events as though he were a commentator at a sports match.  

After the film, the programme switched to local music videos, which were only interrupted by two long and rather cheaply made adverts. One was for toothpaste and the other for an anti-blemish cream. When the adverts were over, the bus assistant walked down the aisle offering the products to the captive passengers. We arrived in Kilwa Masoko well after sundown, as the six-hour-long bus ride ended up taking eight, not to mention the fact that we left half an hour late. Tired and not too hungry, I took a shower and went straight to bed.