I was asked to go to Mbeya to give a talk at a university and I was glad to be at last doing something positive. “You can travel from Dar with some people in a car.” came the offer. Horrified, and still with last month’s two days journey in a dala dala still fresh in my mind, I refused a seat in the car and booked a flight.
I was prepared to pay for it myself – it was £150 return and I thought it was pretty reasonable and I would arrive clean and not covered in vomit or dehydrated from not drinking for 9 hours a day.
I was in Mbeya for much more time than I needed to be – just for a 30 minute speech. I stayed with a friend, a long time resident of Mbeya and he gave me a car to use which was an absolute Godsend. I couldn’t wait to explore the hills around the city (feels more like a town).
As I climbed higher, the clouds came down and the roads emptied. The only vehicles I saw were a few lorries and then only bajaj, fully laden with passengers. At the top of the hill I came acfross a lorry which had crashed through the barriers, fortunately it hadn’t fallen too far and it seemed to be an old incident.
I needed desperately to walk so the final day I took a stroll in a vaguely circular route and was heckled for much of it. “Hey Mama” “Hey Sister” “Hey friend” “Hey rafiki”. Everyone is always trying to sell stuff to my white self. It gets very boring.
There is nowhere to eat in Mbeya unless you want local stuff and I didn’t. It was my third visit to the city and the other two times I had tried The Mbeya Hotel and a Ridge Cafe, both of which were sub-standard. This time I looked online and found Warsame.
Sadly it was much the same. The chicken curry was edible at the least but not enjoyable and I only ate it because I was hungry and there seemed nowhere else to eat. The next day I tried the beef stew but it was so chewy that I cold not gnaw through it, gave up and ate the vegetables instead.
Mbeya is a miserable place – there are no tourist sites (I asked) and nothing to see. The only good thing about Mbeya is that it’s cooler than Dar and there are some nice hills to look at. Apart from that, there’s really nothing to recommend the place.
Thankfully it only takes 90 minutes in Air Tanzania to land back in civilisation (wel, relative civilisation at least).