I had no money which is why I was taking the dala dala bus not flying. Not that there were any tickets to Dar anyway (I had a look in a weak moment). It was the season when students go back home from university for Christmas and the roads and public transport were even busier than usual.
It was relatively easier (relative to the outbound journey) to get back to the border with Tanzania. There I picked up a dala dala to Mbeya which cost almost nothing but took about 4 hours. I got Paul in Mbeya to order me a pizza, knowing how long food takes to come at Mbeya Hotel. A third rate pizza and cold beer never tasted so good.
The only option for me, now there were no plane tickets left for the next three days was to get a bus. And of course, the only option again was a bloody dala dala. I won’t bore you with the cramped, sweaty and smelly conditions we have to suffer on the way to Iringa but when I got there, I was determined to get a ticket for a coach to Dar.
Sadly all coach tickets had sold out but I was able to get a seat as far as Morogoro. Coincidentally, the German backpacker from The Mushroom Farm was also at the cheap hostel I had booked at the last minute.
She latched onto me and asked if she could come with me to Morogoro where she wanted to go trekking.
She was lucky to get the last seat on the bus and we were even luckier when we were given the seats behind the driver. Our sense of relief only lasted an hour or so before the coach picked up half a dozen more passengers and then sat them on the floor next to us and all the way up the aisle.
Our discomfort was forgotten when the bus reached Mikumi National Park and Franzi, who had never been on a safari, was squealing in delight at the sight of giraffe, zebra, baboons, kudu and gazelle. I could hear our fellow passengers laughing at us. But it was a welcome distraction from sharing such a small space with so many people.
I parted company with Franzi at Morogoro after having helped her load up her SIM card with phone credit, and hopped on the only transport available to Dar – another dala dala. This time I got the seat by the driver. I was happy. That is until just before we set off when three young girls were put to sit in the space between us. So now I had to share the foot well with not only my backpack but four more legs, albeit small ones.
It wasn’t long before the smallest one had fallen asleep on my leg. I didn’t mind at all. The children were so quiet, not even speaking to each other although they were sisters. And anyway after a while you get used to keeping on position for hours on end.
Then it all went to hell. The young girl woke up and promptly vomited on me. Her mother was nowhere to be seen (probably asleep herself) so I had to deal with the emergency. I reached into my bag and pulled out several packs of tissues and handed them to the two sisters who mopped up the vomit from their hands and clothes and then chucked them into the foot well onto my right foot. I couldn’t move my right foot so there they stayed,
My jeans were wet with the watery milky vomit although the smell wasn’t too bad. I still had two hours before I could leave this bus. We reached the bus station called Mbezi and there I thought there was going to be a fight (there was a fight at Morogoro) because most of the passengers wanted to go on to Ubungo as they had been promised.
I reluctantly got off the bus with the other dissatisfied passengers and waited for another dala dala to come. And then I had a radical idea.
I reached for my phone, opened the Uber app and in under an hour I was at home, able to peel off my vomit soaked clothes and wash away two days of sweat and dirt.