My Travel Adventures

On the eve of my return from Kilwa, the manager at my hotel asked whether I had booked a bus ticket. I said I had not, as the website I had been recommended refused to accept my European debit cards and my Kenyan MPesa account. The manager made a consternated face. “I am not sure there will be space,” he said. As I waited at the reception with a sudden knot in my stomach, the manager started making phone calls. Buti La Zungu – the company with which I had come to Kilwa the previous day – confirmed that there were no seats on their bus. The manager gave me two options: I could either take another bus at the same time, with the caveat that it is “a worse bus,” or I could take a cab to one of the bigger towns in the neighbourhood to take a “better bus.”

Dating to the 9 th century CE, Kilwa Kisiwani is one of the most historically significant settlements in East Africa. It flourished between the 13 th and 15 th centuries as the seat of the Kilwa Sultanate, a political entity that controlled much of the Swahili Coast and with it, much of the trade that went on between Africa and other civilisations across the Indian Ocean: The Arabian Peninsula, India, and even China. Ibn Battuta, who visited the island city in 1331, described it as one of the most beautiful in the world. It was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1505, who built a fort and stayed until they, in turn, were forced out by the Omanis. 

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.