The final curtain

Thirty thousand words later, and Into Afrika is over. Just like that.

You can find me at my new space in London.

Welcome to London

I’ve been playing Monopoly for the past few days, bouncing through Waterloo, Bond, and Piccadilly.

Before leaving, I asked my brother for some advice. He laughed. “You have no clue what you’re getting yourself into.” Too right. Gumtree is what he offered. Hey, to be fair, he did throw me more tit-bits, and laughed some more, but gumtree was the important thing. It’s the trademe of London. And so with little fanfare, off I went.

The red-eye from Cape Town left me dehydrated and sleep-deprived. What better way to enter one of the greatest cities in the world. I had disappointingly converted my Rand to Pounds before I left, and when I arrived, I disappointingly converted my remaining US dollars. I had left the Kwacha, and Shillings alone, they wouldn’t even touch that in South Africa. I didn’t even think about my Zim dollars.

Let’s get the basics over with. London. Eight million or so, drab, cold, wet, concrete, grey, thanks for asking. Just add ‘home’ to that list for a while. I took the tube from Terminal four to Paddington station, amazed at how subterranean the developed world had become. It wasn’t difficult to get to my backpackers, the Mapesbury Hostel, and with a simple transfer or two, I was staring at my new home for the week. A four-bunk room, empty juice cartons on the floor, and an assortment of clothes thrown around like a bomb; it was like being nineteen all over again. With my thirty kilos of worldly possessions thrown into a corner, I was light-footed and eager to explore.

If you had to be proportional about your London experience, you would talk mostly about the tubes. Perhaps you’d begin animatedly, and mention the intercom system, the ease of jumping on and off the stations, the escalators which go on forever, and the stairs you always seem to be climbing when you’re off. It takes about an hour to get over it, by which time you’ll realise that these musty and sweaty sardine tins will be your life for the next few years. It’s also about then you’ll notice that London thrives on that other social phenomenon: queues.

The pinnacle of human development is the queue. Millennia’s of civilisation produces a person who can stand directly behind another to gaze vacantly, and step forward unconsciously onto the footprints of their predecessor. This is performed in spirit-quashing silence. If you live in the city, this will be referred as ‘normal’. Depressingly so.

I went to Piccadilly Circus to explore. I bought a coke for £1.99, which on my coke scale makes it the most expensive coke I’ve drank. Let’s quickly remind ourselves:

New Zealand - NZ$2 (US$1.45)
South Africa - R5 (US$0.70)
Zambia - Kwa2000 (US$0.50)
Zimbabwe - Z$5,000 (US$0.25 at time of purchase. It’s probably quadruple that by now)
Tanzania - Tsh1,000 (US$0.80 )

And now add:

London - £1,99 (US$3.94)

And everything here costs crazy amounts. My handy rough guide is keen to point out that this is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Hoo-bloody-ray. Stalls outside were selling half-price tickets to the West End. Stomp, Chicago, Mary Poppins, Lion King. It’ll set me back a cool £30, cash I should be saving for important stuff, but let’s face it, I’m not going to resist for long. Queues stretch away in every direction. There are a dozen stalls offering cut-price tickets with dozens of people neatly lined up, suffering in silence under the rain.

I continue to wander, and find myself blinking often. I don’t think much of it and continue walking, drinking in the visual. Then the migraine begins. My eyes feel hollow so I stop to close them for a second. Down went the eyelids, and immediately I am sucked into the oblivion. I opened them with a start. My body had been complaining, and was finally turning the screws. I return to Leicester square, and join a queue at the Odeon. It’s for the latest Pirates movie, not that it matters. Taking my seat, the house-lights already dim, I quickly lose focus. The feature begins, as I sink into the darkness.

Jack Sparrow wakes me with a bang, and my head clears. I control my body and take stock, remembering in an instant my past month. Amidst high seas and whirlpools, I am taken through dusty roads in Kabwe and to the reef around Zanzibar. I zoom through Pretoria and Cape Town as cutlasses clash in front.

I am in one of the largest cities in the world. I am homeless and unemployed, a minnow in an ocean, and I need to begin swimming soon. The clock is ticking.

The Beginning of the End

In Zanzibar, it doesn't take me long to fall into the routine of swimming, snorkelling, and dining with guests.  The holiday spirit has finally arrived, and for once I embrace it.

The hotel is almost completely vacant.  One evening I find that I am the only guest in the Corel Rock.  I spend the evening alone in the restaurant, eating my dinner: grilled calamari with rice and chapatti (a less sweet roti).  In the solitude civilisation seems an eternity away.  I listen to the waves crash in the distance on the shelf.  I idly flick ants from the table top and read a few pages from Lord of the Flies.   Another guest briefly makes an appearance.  A crab.  It scuttles across the restaurant floor in its armour plating, before disappearing through a drain in the wall.

Guests trickle in and out in ones and twos every couple of days.  A couple from Holland arrive.  An elderly American.  Canadians.   We form our own coalitions, strength being found in numbers.

Klaude is from Holland, is a field officer for an aid organisation and has been based in East Africa for the year.  We go snorkelling together with his wife, and that night we join for dinner.  Over kingfish and calamari, he tells me of his work, and of the logistics of setting up refugee camps in the region; the politics of international aid.  He speaks four European languages, and several African.  Far from the archetype tie-dye and bandana-wearing hippy, Klaude is bestowed with intelligence, a caustic sense of humour and a strong sense of pragmatism.

Over several beers, he tells me about the Heineken factories in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  They're an anomaly.  Highly profitable, and to date the only untouched targets in the Congo war.  I was amazed that these places can exist in a country which, I was told, only has four real roads.  Even the warlords, it seems, are wise enough to know the consequences of robbing their country of a good brew.  More spectacular is when Klaude discloses that Heineken once diverted its water supply to a local refugee camp when a shortage was foreseen.  I ask why I'd never heard of this benevolence.

"They denied it."

"That makes no sense.  Why?"

"I don't know.  Perhaps it doesn't benefit their company."

I'm dumbfounded.  A brewery saving lives then denying all knowledge of its spectacular civil service.  It's almost unbelievable.

The Canadians made an appearance for an evening;  a couple on their own grand-scale adventure: Cairo to Cape Town.  They'd booked eight months for this trip, and had already been gone for four.  They'd been through tourist anti-hotspots such as Libya and Uganda. 

Africa is safe, they tell me.  Their surprise is just how safe it's been.  I ask whether they popped into the Congo for a beer.  They admit they missed a few less idyllic spots in their itinerary.  But they do tell me about billboards of Colonel Kaddafi's face plastered along the motorways, and spending time camping in the deserts in North Africa.  They're great storytellers, and soon they make me want to abandon my plans and recklessly continue north.

The Canadians were in Zanzibar for a couple of days before taking my old friend, the TAZARA express to the Zambian border.  They were going to detour south to Malawi and Mozambique, places which still held an air of fantasy to me.

One evening, Khazim approaches.  "You want to go Stone Town tomorrow?"  And why not.  The following morning I jump aboard the shuttle and am driven to the capital of Zanzibar.  It's where Arabia meets Africa.  We are dropped outside the market where a clean-cut man in his late twenties becomes our guide.  Ramadan is dressed immaculately in brown pants and shirt, and spends the next few hours weaving us through the town, teaching us its history.  The roads are thin and uneven, and buildings squeeze into impossible gaps, creating a maze of alleys and boulevards.  Bikes and scooters scream down the alleys, honking their horns to warn pedestrians.  Several times Ramadan has to grab me and push me out of the way of a scooter's path.

 In Stone Town, the mosque and the church are so close they're practically neighbours.  It's a feature of this place, which Ramadan proudly points out:  "Hakuna Matata.  It's how we live.  See, even Christian and Muslim exist in peace."  He walks us through the Anglican and Catholic churches, and I listen to his stories about the slave centre in the town, and the pirate history of the island.  Tourist fodder.  We leave the churches and start to walk away.  I stop Ramadan and ask whether the mosque, like the churches, allow guests.  Ramadan shakes his head and smiles.

We finish the tour of Stone Town.  I want to be cut free to explore by myself, but we are not allowed.  Our shuttle is waiting.  Ramadan grabs a ride with us on the return journey, and we chat away.  His English is excellent, and we chat about the local customs, history, and politics.  While on the road, it starts raining fat drops of water that explode into vapour on the ground.  The locals seem to continue their work, the rain more an annoyance than a show-stopper.  The rainwater is warm, and adds to the already swelling humidity.  We pass through a ramshackle village and I am surprised when we stop.  Ramadan jumps out of the shuttle and turns to shake my hand.  I thank him, and watch as he smiles, then turns to walk into his village in the rain.  He steps around the water-filled potholes, past the chickens and disappears amongst the decaying houses in his dress pants and immaculate shirt.

***

Six nights pass quickly, and before long I'd found my number was up.  It was time to return to the real world.

If I were to be honest, I was a little relieved.  I could handle the thirty degrees, the pool and the beach making it quite comfortable.  The humidity, however, was the killer.  Each breath feels laboured.  You inhale and exhale and they both taste hot and wet.  Your clothes also suffer.  They become soaked in damp and feel wet to the touch – even the stuff you don't wear.  And after several days, they begin to smell of damp.  I had a ticket booked for Johannesburg, and frankly, it was about time to leave.

I say my farewells to Khazim, Ali, and the staff, and the following morning, I am taken to Stone Town's relic airport.  The arrivals and departures board is a whiteboard.  Check-in is little more than kiosk stalls.  I queue under the sun, and once I receive my boarding pass, I enter inside a ten by ten room where a security guard points me to the different stations.  Baggage check is on the right.  Airport duty is an about turn, and five meters away.  Once performed, a sidestep to the left and you're in immigration.  Obligations fulfilled, I am pointed in the direction of the departure lounge, which looks a little more like the real thing.  In African predictability, the power is out, so everything is performed manually.  My bags could have been packed with heroine and high explosives, and the security guards wouldn't have noticed.  They peer into the top of the bag with mock interest, then wave me along.  It's not what you'd call meticulous.

My last action in Zanzibar, in East Africa as a matter of fact, was to go to the loo.  I have to pass back through the security checkpoint, where the guard doesn't even acknowledge my presence.  As I enter the guy's lav, I find a lady in an apron mopping the floor.  I make to leave and she stops me.  "No, you go.  No worry."  I walk into a cubical and find there's no toilet paper so I exit and tell her.  She walks to a utility cupboard outside and hands me a roll.  I re-enter the cubical, and pray that she leaves.

No such luck.  It's a free world, and I suppose I'm a liberated being, but with the growing demise of discrimination, the bathroom has become one of the few sanctuaries left to man.   This lady's presence broke every sacrament of the segregated loo.  I perform my business and leave the cubical to find her mopping over the same spot.  She hands me a paper towel to assist with the hand-washing ritual, and stares as I apply the soap and water.  I turn to exit and find that she's manoeuvred her bulk in front of the door.  "You pay tip.  Just one thousand."

I almost punched her.  Half an hour later the plane takes off with me safely on board.  It took me a day to travel the twelve thousand kilometres from Auckland to Cape Town.  Almost three months later, I found that my wanderings had led me six thousand kilometres north, and midway through the continent.  I was tired and unkempt.  My clothes badly needed a wash, and for once, I was missing the luxuries of the west.  Level roads, clean water, flushing loos, even faceless malls.  I had lived the extraordinary, and was missing the mundane.

I had brushed lives with political activists, religious leaders (both corrupt and benevolent), long-lost family members, and con-artists, the latter in their dozens.  I had met Afrikaans, Xhosa, Sutu, Shona, Vemba, Tanzanian, and Masai.  Each thoroughly different from one another.  I was returning to civilisation with a lump in my throat and a promise to return.  My African days were ending, the adventure almost over.

It was a five hour journey to Johannesburg airport, not that I remembered much;  I dreamt most of it away.  I still had a couple of weeks left in South Africa, time spent not in travel, but preparation for the next adventure.  This has by far been some of the best months of my life, but this isn't the end.  To quote CS Lewis, this isn't the even the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning.  My sights turn north.

To London.

And Relax! Zanzibar, Tanzania

I open my eyes and wait for the world to come into focus. I’m lying in a four-poster bed, covered in a thin white sheet. Through the mosquito net overhead I see a fan swinging on its axis like a propeller. It’s seven in the morning and already it’s in the late-twenties. My breathing is slow and the air is hot and wet. I take stock of the previous night.

It was a like bad dream. I was whisked aboard a shuttle after the Cessna had landed, then driven through Stone Town by night. Objects flashed past in the darkness: cars without headlights, bikes, motorbikes, pedestrians. Groups of people sat outside, illuminated in phosphorescence as they stared at television sets. My eyes desperately wanted to close, to fall into the abyss, but I was clutching my seat, my nerves worn thin. We took a side street and drove through flooded dirt roads, my life yet again in the hands of complete strangers.

An hour of travel, and the moon had risen like a orb. We entered a village of cracked walls and decaying houses, and the shuttle stopped outside a high white wall. The sign on the wall read ‘Corel Rock Hotel and Restaurant.’ The gates opened, and my memory faded.

“How are you todey?” My concentration broke. I had made it out of my room, and into the restaurant, a mug of coffee in my hand when Khazim found me. Our events manager. One of his eyes has a cataract of sorts, his gaze consequently is dull. Khazim had approached me the previous night, so his appearance this morning was a shadow of darker times. I tell him I’m still tired, and he gets to business. “We leave soon. You ready?”

I wasn’t. I wanted another day of sleep, but I wasn’t given the luxury. It was off-season and I had agreed to go on a boat ride around the islands. I rise and follow Khazim to the shuttle.

Johan introduces himself to me. Fifties, barefoot, shorts, and a loud red shirt. He is not out of place. Here the board room makes way for board shorts. In Auckland you may be an accountant, a teacher, a builder. In Zanzibar, you just are. We’re joined by a few others, a contingent of Afrikaners. Johan himself is from Johannesburg, and seems to know the staff. He sits in front with Khazim and makes conversation for the hour journey to the boat.

We arrive in another village and park by the shore. Khazim points to a banana boat. “The red one. Short walk.” The tide is out, so our short walk is ten minutes out on the shelf. My head was clearing and I was slowly registering the world. It’s a postcard. The sun is shining down on us, the seawater is warm and clear. Palms and other trees line the shores, and the sand is white. We board, and before long we’re cutting across the waves.

Paul is a geologist from Cape Town. He’s been working on this side of the world for a while. His wife, Jackie appears to share a part of her husband’s spirit, but is certainly not the outdoor type. Mark and Kate are a honeymoon couple from Johannesburg.

The two stroke on the boat is noisy, so the journey is made mostly in silence. White sandy islands pass by, each one as beautiful as the next. Khazim looks more relaxed, and tells me that in peak season there would be hundreds of tourists in dozens of boats, searching for that idyllic island spot. I had heard that people go to Zanzibar to swim with dolphins, so I ask him about it. He tells me that each peak season is like a dolphin hunt, the waters filled with boatloads of tourists itching for their two minute experience. You get pushed into the sea, you spot a dolphin, then you move away to let another person live the moment.

We reach a desert island and disembark to spend the day in leisure. Our crew plays and dines with us, the boundary between servant and master broken. The reef teems with fish in their thousands. Under the water, we spot schools of Nemo-like fish, and several dozen trumpet fish. On land, we are served with fresh produce: coconuts, mangoes, bananas, and fish. Johan wants to find some mangroves to plant outside the hotel, and so for the return journey the boat is taken into a lagoon. We shoot between a gap in the rocks, like threading a needle, and Johan jumps overboard in his flippers. I join him, my body already burnt, but deciding that any moment untaken is a moment lost. The wind picks up a little, and our boat is regularly battered by waves crashing over the hull. They soak us in salt water, but this is refreshing in the afternoon heat. We make our way south, and back to Zanzibar.

In the real world, Johan is a zoology professor. He lectures on human physiology, and happens to be managing the hotel for a while. It’s a side project for a few weeks. I join him that night at the bar, and he tells me about his experience of teaching in South Africa. As with most Afrikaners, he rues for the day when colour-politics doesn’t interfere with education. He tells me about dropping standards, and increasing problems within his classes where students are unable to write to even Matric standard. Johan is good-humoured, but he can see a bleak future ahead.

Frederik joins us, orders a beer and lights his cigarette. Twenties, Aryan, Danish. He had a bag stolen with his valuables, leaving him and his wife with a single credit card to make their way through the next few weeks. He reported it to the local polisi, but is frustrated with their lack of progress in writing a report. It’s urgently needed in order to file an insurance claim. In Denmark he works as a fire-fighter, an irony, since he is sunburnt from head to foot. Johan makes pains to repeatedly point this out to him.

Our contingent chats into the night, but eventually we retire, leaving me to return to my room and take my first long shower in ten days. My hair is coarse and stiff, and I am shocked when I wash it to feel how soft it becomes. I hear a knock on the door and donning a towel, open it. A man stands outside, he tells me name is Muhammad, and he wants to know whether I want to swim with dolphins tomorrow. I smile, and shake my head.

Zanzibar photos.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

It's hot.  Not the dry heat of Harare or Kabwe, but sticky and wet.  The temperature outside is a muggy thirty degrees, and in this claustrophobic office my body is a sheen of sweat and dirt.  My shirt sticks to me like a second skin, and I can feel the grime of several unwashed days wear me down.  I'm surrounded by Tanzanians arguing fiercely in Swahili.  They gesticulate, point, and shout.  I understand nothing except that they're arguing over me.  The man with the missing teeth laughs, slaps my back and shakes my hand. "Hakuna matata!  Hakuna matata!" he cries.  His friend disappears with my ferry ticket and as he darts out the basement office I know I won't be seeing it again.  The kingpin of the operation, a large bearded man across the desk, smiles broadly.  I return it with a stare.  I'm still standing, the thirty kilos of my pack heavy on my shoulders.  My back and legs ache, but I resolve not to give the bearded man the pleasure of knowing how defeated I feel.  His sinister smile tells me the game is up.  He speaks to me in English, "I think... we can fix this."

***

After entering Tanzania via Tunduma, the TAZARA express makes its way northeast, and through the rural mainland.  Kids run out to the tracks in every village we pass.   Some are content to stare, while others throw sticks at the carriages.  When the train is slow enough, the kids shout at us.  "Sop!"  They yell.  Unsure, I ask, "You want soap?"   "Give us sop!"  They respond.  When I shake my head, they hold their hands in the air and rub their fingers.  "Give us maa-nee!"  They don't stop, and I hear their voices yelling their demands in the distance as the train leaves each village.

The kids are the most worrisome experience of the rest of the trip.  The Tanzanian express continues at its sedate pace, and I make myself at home on in the lounge, reading much of the journey away.  Another bumpy and sleepless night, and I find the following morning that the landscape has changed.  Instead of acacia and jacaranda trees, the vegetation has become a forest of ferns and palms.  The temperature has also increased by several degrees, and the air is thick with moisture.

The journey is uneventful.  After almost two thousand kilometres and forty-four hours the express finally pulls into Dar es Salaam station.  It stops with a halt and sits eerily still, my body conditioned to the motion, is still moving to its rhythm.

I grab my pack, jump off the train and within seconds I am accosted by a taxi driver.  "You want Texi!" It's not a question.  I tell him I need to get to the ferry terminal via a bureau de change, and ask for his price.  He ignores my question and attempts to take my pack off my back.  "Hey, wait!" I cry, twisting away.  He pulls a card from his pocket.  "You teke charter plene, very cheep."  I refuse, I'm not interested in being ripped off.  "But very cheep, get you good deal."  I tell him to take me to the ferry terminal.  By now a few taxi drivers have caught up with me.  An argument ensues between him and his colleagues, and within two minutes only one young man remains, still passionately shouting at my driver.  Unperturbed, he ignores this protest and guides me  through the station terminal and to a taxi.  It turns out he's only the sidekick in this operation, with a portly elderly man in a kofi, managing affairs from the driver's seat.  There is more arguing amongst themselves, but eventually my pack is transferred to the trunk and me in the back.  We settled on a price of Tsh30,000 (US$28) for the ride, and I know I'm being ripped off.  As we pull away, I discover a gap where there ought to be a seatbelt.

The roads in Dar es Salaam are narrow, and populated by the same insanity of motorists I am getting used to in other African towns.  Bicycles and pedestrians occupy the same space as vehicles, and cars constantly hoot to ward slower vehicles off the street.  After a ten minute journey through the dirty metropolis, my driver pulls through an intersection, and stops his car in the middle.  If I find this unusual, no-one else does.  Cars and bikes merely twist around this new obstacle.  He points to a building with a bored security guard outside.  "Bureau.  You change there."

I step out the taxi, avoiding the traffic, and thinking how my pack was still in his trunk.  Inside the bureau, I am given bad news.  They won't buy my kwacha.  I had withdrawn a million Kwacha (US$250) from an ATM in Kabwe with the intention of exchanging it in Dar.  I ask a few times, but they won't touch the stuff.

I return to my taxi, relieved that it hasn't driven off with my possessions, and we drive to another bureau.  To my relief they are able to take my kwacha.  We continue through the narrow streets, avoiding collisions with bicyclists and pedestrians, and arrive at the ferry terminal.  I want to pay the driver now, but his companion jumps out the taxi and tells me to follow him.  "No thank you," I reply, clearly suspicious, "I'll be alright from here."  "No.  You follow.  Get you tee-ket" He responds.  I don't know why, but I step in line behind him.

We walk to the ticket counters; rows of rudimentary boxes with slits for windows.  Before we reach a counter, he takes a hard right, and down a flight of stairs in an adjoining building.  I have to jostle past several men to follow, and find myself in the basement.  We walk down an ill-lit corridor through a small office, and into another.  It's like an oven.  A large bearded man is sitting at his desk, a computer screen to his right, a fan to his left.  The walls are plastered with travel posters.  Dubai, London, Paris.  "Welcome!" he booms.  My guide sits to the side and they talk loudly in Swahili to each other.  I take a seat and await my fate.

Eventually the bearded man turns to me.  "You want to go to Zanzibar."  He pronounces it 'san-si-bar'.  I tell him that I want to book a ferry ticket.  "But ferry, ferry take two, maybe three hour!  You charter plane, I get you a good price."  He proceeds to tell me about his career as a traffic controller, and concludes with a promise:  "I give you good price, good price."  It's a set up.  I tell the bearded man that I'm not interested in playing his game, and tell him I will be taking the ferry.  We argue, and I try and maintain my cool.  I am in a foreign country and am effectively trapped in this  room.  I simply cannot afford to become angry. 

After some argument, he sighs and tells me his price for the ferry.  "Fifty US."  I accept, and it sets forth a flurry of activity.  He bellows to his staff in the corridor, and within five minutes they return with a ticket, most likely bought for half the price from the booking offices upstairs.  The bearded man tells me the departure time.  "Three o' clock.  Come back at three."  My watch tells me it's one.  Two hours to kill.

I leave the building, and take out my wallet, ready to pay the taxi driver.  "No, you go to ATM first."  I complain, but realise that I may not have much opportunity to withdraw money.  My driver takes me two blocks down the road.  In the taxi, he starts to bargain.  "You know," he begins, "we drive you places and we weet for you.  We weeted at bureau.  We weeted at ferry.  Now we teek you to ATM."  I tell him that he needn't have waited at the ferry terminal, and we'd agreed to a price. "But we weet long, for long time.  Thirty ez too little.  We want fifty shilling."  I balk and refuse to pay, and so we begin arguing.  I eventually agree to forty shillings, provided he takes me back to the ferry terminal afterward.  I'm being ripped off, but I have little choice.  I am becoming angry, and need to retain my composure.

We work as planned.  I withdraw my maa-nee from an ATM, am driven back to the terminal, and am dropped off, where I am immediately scooped up by a beanie-donned man with missing front teeth.  Like the taxi-driver, he cries his mantra, "Porter!  Porter!"  and attempts to pull my pack off my back.  I yank away, and tell him I don't need one.  He follows, and I can't shake him.  "Where's the nearest hotel?" I finally ask.  He points to a building a block away.  I thank him and walk off, but he follows closely.  We reach the hotel and I enter.  He enters with me.  I ask the doorman where the restaurant is, and he points to the elevator.  "First floor," and advises, "you can leave your pack here if you like."  Not bloody likely.  I take the elevator up, and find that the toothless man has slipped inside the elevator with me.

"I'll be okay from here," I tell him.  He tries talking, he wants to be my friend, he can help me.  I walk to a table, and he pulls up a seat by me.  Controlling myself, I sternly rebuke him.  "Look, I need to do some work.  I need to be left alone."  To my surprise he walks away, leaving me to order a drink and grab a moment's respite.  The waiter, a kid in his teens, looks on in sympathy.  His English is brilliant, and after a minute he comes up to me and advises, "That man is still here.  If you don't pay him some money there's a chance he will try and rob you."  Sure enough, the man had taken a table around the corner, and was waiting for me to conclude my business.  Incised, I pull Tsh1,500 (US$1.20) from my wallet and shove it in his hand.  "Two thousand," he replies.  "I don't think so." I turn and walk away.  He leaves, hallelujah.

I eat a buffet lunch for Tsh5,000 (US$4) and relax for a while.  I chat to the waiter and he warns me,  "Don't trust people in Dar, especially if you're a tourist.  They will take your money."

3pm arrives far too soon.  I pick up my pack and take the five minute walk back to the ferry terminal.  The toothless man was waiting for me outside.  He runs toward me, yelling "You late!  You must run! Come! Come!"  I tell him he's being brash, but he pulls me along.  "See," he points, "ferry! It's gone now!  You miss!"  I don't believe him, so I walk to a guard at the terminal and show him my ticket.  A lump forms in my throat as he points to a boat just pulling out from the harbour.  "But..." I stammer, "it's leaving early!"  The toothless man takes me along, past the booking offices, and back down the stairs to the basement, through the narrow corridor, and back into the muggy office of the large bearded man.  He is in a meeting with several of his colleagues as the toothless man interrupts.  They start shouting in Swahili, and most of the message is lost in translation.  I stay standing.

Soon enough, there is laughter.  The man with the missing teeth turns to me and slaps my back.  "Hakuna matata!  Hakuna matata!" he cries, clearly happy.  The bearded man asks for my ferry ticket, and soon enough it disappears out the door, while it is being 'checked'.  I notice the clock behind him.  It reads 4 o' clock.  I ask him for the time, and he tells me, "Four, four o' clock.  You hour late."  He smiles broadly as I stare back.  My back and legs ache, and my world spins around me.  I am in a new time zone, my watch is an hour behind.  "I think we can fix this," he tells me.

***

He will subsidise a charter plane with my ferry ticket.  He thinks for a moment and tells me his fee.  US$85, taxi fare inclusive.  I'm cornered.  I hand him my money and grab the receipt.  "You call before you leave Zanzibar, one, two days before you leave.  We make good deal for trip back.  Okay?"  Clenching my fists, I tell him I will certainly be in touch.

I head to their taxi, and discover the bearded man wants to join in for the ride.  It's almost rush hour, and if traffic was bad on the way in, I find a new  standard of chaos as we speed to the airport.  The taxi driver, unshaken, motors along, cutting through lanes, overtaking on the right and left.  One intersection, he loses patience and veers onto the footpath, honking his horn at pedestrians unlucky enough to be occupying the space before his car.

The taxi finally pulls into the airport.  I get out, and the bearded man sticks his head through the window.  He shouts at someone nearby, then points to me.  "You!  Follow thees man, he take you from here."  I'm led into the departure terminal, and he points me through the security checkpoint.  I walk through, unmolested, and am led to the ticket booth.  A official greets me, "welcome, we need to weigh your luggage.  Just pop it on the scale."  I comply and he tuts.  "It's over the limit.  Feef-teen kilo limit."  I protest, but he cuts me short.  "We bargain later."  He takes me to the departure terminal and promises to return.  I have an hour's wait, but am tense and frankly, looking for a fight.

He returns, bringing up the subject of the overweight baggage, and I let rip.  I ask to see my ticket, to see the weight limit, to read the CAA baggage rules.  "This is ridiculous," I tell him, explaining how everyone wants a piece of my wallet.  I finally lose steam and stare at him.  He speaks in a small voice.  "You give five thousand shilling, we call even, okay?"  I shove the money in his hand and plant myself on the seat.

The time passes, and I am led out the terminal and to an awaiting Cesena.  The sun is low, and I realise I have spent my entire day in Dar being ripped off.  As I climb inside this six-seater, I vow never to return. 

Flying is therapy.  We spring off the runway, and I feel the weight of the day lift from my shoulders.  The sun is a disk low in the sky, the arc of the earth magnifying the orb to twice its size.  I stare at it, and wonder whether Zanzibar will be any less manic.  The sun sinks further west, and for an instant everything turns red, then darkness covers the earth.

The Tanzanian Express

As I enter my cabin in Tanzanian Express, I choose a bunk, and shove my pack underneath it. The room is barely larger than a prison cell, and sleeps four. For the first ten minutes I'm the only passenger in my cabin, and I hope that it stays this way.

A Tanzanian enters. I could tell because his dress is starkly different to what I've previously seen. It's a thin colourful cotton garb, more Moroccan than Zulu. Under his arm he carries two black leather bags, and a large black leather jacket. In thirty degree heat I wonder what the jacket is for.

Minutes later, an Asian man enters. He looks inside cautiously and spots me. "Heei." He waves. He's dressed in full khaki gear, vest pockets bulging. He clearly looks nervous, so I attempt conversation. I discover he's from Japan, and has been in Africa for two days. His English is awful, very awful, and I pity him. In Southern Africa, English is spoken throughout, but in Tanzania, it's hit and miss, with Swahili being the official tongue. This man was in for a helluva ride. I try to give him some advice. "Keep your bag with you at all times." He smiles and nods his head furiously, "Ya, ya!" I continue, "Don't change your money on the train, it's illegal, and anyhow, you get a bad rate." His head continues to rock up and down, and his eyes are lit up in a smile. I have no clue whether he understands a word I'm saying. "Do you understand a word I'm saying?" His head jackdaws like a spring, "Ya, ya!" Clearly.

The Tanzanian express runs from Kapiri to Dar es Salaam. It leaves on a Tuesday afternoon, and arrives more or less at lunchtime on Thursday. It skirts through Zambia, before jumping the border, and cuts across Tanzania and the Selous national park. The train leaves on time with a jolt, and we are catapulted forward. After ensuring my pack is firmly wedged under my bed, I take my day pack with my valuables to the lounge and kick back.

The first day of travelling was sublime. I stare out the window, help myself to soft drinks from the bar (a steal at US$0.50 a coke), and set my teeth into a local book on the Rhodesian war. The train rattles and screeches along. It's metal on metal, and it shakes so much I wonder whether bits are springing loose and flying off. Because the train is Chinese built, the rail gauge is narrow, meaning that the train rocks sideways, and lumbers along like a dying horse. At times I could easily jump off and jog along my carriage.

After several hours of slow progress, I need to relieve myself. I make my way to the bathroom, wrench open the door and survey what I assume must be the facilities. Stainless steel, no seat, no lid. Two buckets of water sit next to the toilet. One has a rudimentary scoop, a sawn-off plastic coke bottle floating on top of one of the buckets. I'm too afraid to discover what the purpose of the buckets are, but as I continue to assess the situation, I make a more distressing discovery. There is no toilet paper. The journey is about 44 hours. I wonder how long I could possibly hold on.

My bathroom experience is just a part of this utilitarian journey. The Chinese government have a knack for making things look ugly. The length of the bunks seem to be created by a torturer, designed to be just about too short for comfort. You lie on the bunk and feel alright for about five minutes before the cramps set in. The doors for the cabins are stiff and often requires the effort of two people to open and close. Signs are etched in mandarin, and everything is painted in drab greys. I get the impression that I'm in a submarine, with thick clanging doors between the carriages, and mysterious creeks throughout. I wouldn't feel amiss if I saw sailors in uniform run by to arm the torpedoes.

The first class lounge is the only respite. It contains large red couches, and the bar. Consequently, it becomes my home for much of the journey. With day one of my train journey almost nearing an end, I scoff a dinner of chicken and rice in the restaurant (US$2.50) and retire for the night. I enter my cabin to find that in my absence the leather coated man has taken residence in my bed. I take the vacant and pillow-less top bunk and imagine ways in which a less cowardly man would take his revenge as I try to fall asleep.

But sleep is another luxury you don't get on the Tanzanian Express. You bump and bounce on your bed as the train judders along. There is no peaceful slip into the ether, but rather a series of convulsions, enough to rob you of that precious moment where memory turns to fantasy. The following morning I find I must have passed out at some stage, because I awake to find we're nearing Mbala, the Zambian border.

I'm still lying half naked in my bunk when a stranger enters our cabin. "Change money?" he asks. The Japanese man flaps his hand in the air excitedly, the universal sign for 'screw me over', and proceeds to empty his vest pockets of vast quantities of Kwacha. The cabin window is open, and so is the door. My cabin-mates and I have barely spoken a word, but now we stare at each other in a language we both understand: shock.

The money changer sets to work, grabs the fistful of cash, and proceeds to count. He takes a roll of Tanzanian shillings out of his pocket and makes the exchange. After a few minutes he asks, "Change US?" Our Japanese friend's eyes light up as he understands. Out of his other pocket he pulls a large wad of US dollars. It's Christmas to the money changer, and leather jacket man and myself just stare at the Japanese man's naivety.

Leaving this scene, I make my way to the lounge and prepare myself for immigration. Shortly, a young Zambian enters. He falls down on the seat opposite me and smiles warmly. "How are you?" He asks. I respond that I'm tired, but enjoying the trip. We make conversation, which appears to be the Zambian way, and after a few minutes he asks for my passport. Digging it out of my bag, he promptly stamps it and wishes me well. My stay in Zambia is officially over.

Half an hour later, we've rolled into the Tanzanian border town of Tunduma. A man in different coloured uniform walks in, takes a seat and asks for my passport. Tanzanian immigration. He smiles as he leafs through my passport, but it doesn't set me at ease. "You have entry visa?" he asks, turning pages. "No, I need to get one." I respond. "Fifty US." I hand over the money as another official enters, an older man. They speak to each other in Swahili, and the younger man hands my passport to his senior. The older man flashes a smile, but his eyes are hard. He tells me he'll bring my passport back shortly. I begin to protest, but he pulls out his warmest tone, chilling my blood in the process, and asks, "Do you trust me?" I want to yell 'Hell no!" but all I manage is a pathetic whimper. "I get nervous when people take my passport away," I tell him. Another smile, a promise to return shortly, and off goes my passport.

I try and return to my book but find I'm too anxious to read. My fingers drill on the table, on the window. I scratch my itchy scalp, well aware that it hasn't seen a good wash in over a week. My mind flutters, "your passport, your passport, your passport, your passport." I can't stop it, so I check the time and bargain with myself. Ten minutes. If I don't see the immigration crew in ten minutes, I'll begin the hunt.

I console myself by asking the barman about the officials. "They took my passport. Is that normal?" He shrugs and tells me that there's nothing untoward about it. It settles me a little, but I still can't relax. Ten minutes pass, and I reason with myself.

"Perhaps I was too hard on them, they look legitimate."
"Aha! They appear to look legitimate. How can you tell?"
"But there were several of them. One had a stamping device."
"A prop, to fool tourists like yourself."
"But the barman, the barman..."
"Perhaps he's in on it too, you only met him yesterday. Who can you trust?"

My mind is playing games and I become more worried. I approach the barman again and ask where the immigration officials are. "Third carriage down, last compartment." I take a seat and decide to wait a few more minutes.

Half an hour passes, and I can't stand it any longer. I jump to my feet and stride out of the lounge. I count the carriages, one, two, three. As I near the end of the third carriage, my nerves are playing up. "You're being robbed!" they sing. I'm considering life without a passport in Tanzania and curse myself for not writing down the number of the local embassy.

A compartment door slams open and out comes the gang of immigration officers. The senior officer immediately sees me and strides toward me, shaking his head. "You didn't trust me, did you?" In his hand is my lifeblood, my passport. I could have hugged him, but instead in my relief I blather reams of apologies, take his hand and shake it like a pump. He's given me a visa for three months.

Like the flick of a switch, the world changed. The hallway became lighter, and I could see that these men were as relaxed as the Zambians. The older officer carries himself in a grandfatherly manner. His smile wasn't diabolical, but genial, as of a well-mannered officer. "I've been doing this for five years, you shouldn't have been worried," he tells me. We move to the lounge where they laugh at my expense, the break in tension is palpable. I return to my seat buoyant.

The officials take a set of couches behind me and chat amongst themselves. I want to join them, but a wave of drowsiness has just swept over me. I open my book and within minutes I find that my head has dropped. The clanging of the train becomes a distant noise, and my thoughts slip through the fingers of consciousness, and gently succumb to the void.

Jesus is King! Kabwe, Zambia

“Welcome to Kabwe, Where Jesus is King!” says the sign outside the town. If Christ reigns here, he rules over a poor kingdom. Inside, it’s a dirty, dusty town in the middle of Zambia. Shops lack the sophistication of any you’d find in developed nations. They’re rudimentary buildings, whitewashed and crumbling. Indecipherable posters hang, half torn on the walls. Few areas in the town are grassed, and for a westerner like myself, fewer are maintained.

But there is a magic to this place. My host, Jabez, has accepted me into his family, and I spend a leisurely week with him as my escort. Jabez works with the Ebenezer Tabernacle, one of the largest churches in a town, which to no surprise, is predominantly Christian. I pass signs everywhere to that effect including, notably, a grocery called “God Knows The Rest,” and a truck with “My dream comes true, thank Jesus,” painted on the back. In the shops there are God posters on the walls and Christian tracts on tables. Jabez tells me there are fourteen Christian television stations that broadcast into the area. Flicking through the stations, I’m taken aback by the amount of expensive suits, attentive audiences, and forthright preachers I see. I turn the telly off, mostly to avoid my rising cynicism.

The broadcasts from God TV and TBN are a poor reflection on the type of people I meet in Kabwe. They’re just so friendly, by far the friendliest I’ve encountered in Africa. I’m regularly stopped in the streets by locals who don’t want to sell their wares or beg for money, but just to chat. I’m obviously a stranger, and with untypical good grace they’re interested in finding out about me.

Take this: a few days into my stay, I discover I need to get my visa extended. We turn up to the immigration office, and I end up in conversation with the immigration officer. After chatting about our respective countries, he stamps my passport for an extra fortnight and shakes my hand like an old friend. No administration fees, the African byword for a bribe, and no dirty looks, which is the typical fare. The procedure was so smooth, in fact, that I felt like I somehow cheated the system.

****

In Kabwe, it’s hot, well over 25 degrees. For several hour stretches during my week’s stay, I’m left to my devices in Jabez’s home. Reading books in the shade quickly makes me restless, so it wasn’t before long that I decide to wander around the town.

The people in Kabwe don’t have cars, so transport by foot is the most common method. The sun is low in the sky as I walk out Jabez’s house and down the street. I was envisioning walking into town, but as is custom, I find myself instead trekking the opposite direction, and through its back streets.

There is a liveliness to the place which cannot be experienced in a safari, a guided tour, or a town centre. Walking down these dusty roads, I pass a group of kids playing soccer in a local field. Sticks have been tied together to create rudimentary goalposts, and children chase en masse after a soccer ball. Further down the road, I pass a Roman Catholic church and hear choirs practicing outside with gusto. Here people are relaxed, and smile as I walk past them.

Two teenagers are playing chess by the side of the road. I stop and ask whether I can take a photo. They’re rather amused by this, and fix me a quizzical stare. “Where I come from, we also play chess,” I blurt realising only too late how stupid it must sound.

One of the teens asks whether I want a game. I refuse at first, but he persists, and soon I am lost in amongst pawns and knights with my newfound nemesis, George. He takes the black pieces for himself and offers me the white. I don’t know whether he saw the irony.

The game begins, and I play as someone with the air of confidence. Soon enough, I lose all sense of time while sitting on a block of wood next to the dusty road. We plot and battle over the chequered board as we attempt to dominate each other. It’s a stalemate for a while, but eventually George strikes, and minutes later it’s all over, leaving me to hold back my disappointment. As I shake his hand I realise that I still hold a notion that poor black Africans are primitive, and while I walk away, gingerly rubbing my wounded ego, I appreciate his lesson.

But time had passed, and the sun now wanes in the sky. I backtrack but for once I am not lost, so I stop by a street vendor. They operate tiny stalls, the size of two phone booths side by side. His name is Godfrey, and we soon fall into conversation. I want to buy a Fanta from him but he refuses to sell it to me. It’s too warm, he tells me, so instead we chat. He’s a thoughtful youth, and we continue to talk about his life in Kabwe until the sun begins to set. I’ve been out for a few hours, and wonder whether my host family might be getting worried. Not at all, it seems. I make my way back to discover dinner has just been served, and relax while eating mishna, chicken, soup, and stew. A feast.

Each day, I would wake at around seven thirty, and Jabez and myself would have breakfast. Eggs, baked beans, toast, and corn flakes. While eating, we would craft our plans for the day. One day he told me that he was heading to Lusaka, capital of Zambia. He explained that he was going to be gone until sundown because he was asked to speak to a family on behalf of the suitor of their daughter.

“Our custom eez deferent to youz,” he explains. Amongst most Zambians, a suitor has to enter negotiations with his future family when he wishes to betroth their daughter. The negotiations can last several days, and often become heated affairs. The family supposedly acts in the interests of their daughter, probing to discern whether the suitor can fulfil his obligations to his potential wife. It actually sounds wise, like pre-marital counselling, something I’ve seen work very well in New Zealand. I tell this to Jabez.

But that’s not the end of it. Jabez continues. After sufficient justification is provided of the suitor’s suitability, the poor man has to settle on a price for the daughter’s hand in marriage. This is, provided he still wishes to unite after arguing for days with his prospective in-laws. The bargaining begins, which typically lasts another day. Jabez was asked to mediate the process. Several days later, I learn that the family had accepted the marriage offer, and had settled to agree to hand the daughter over for a reasonable price of five cattle. I ask Jabez how the negotiations went. “Tiring.” He responds.

****

On Sunday morning Jabez takes me to his church for their three hour service, God help me. The music is mainly in Vemba, so I don’t understand a word, but the congregation sings in beautiful harmonies, and before long everyone is up and dancing. The front of the church before the stage is filled with dozens of men in suits and women in their Sunday best dancing their African jigs. There’s a backing band, but because the choir doesn’t bother performing with a band, it struggles to perform with the singers. Songs often begin in acapello while the band hits random notes in a mad effort to find the key of the tune. The result is a discordant mess for the first minute, frustrating everyone but myself. I actually enjoy the spectacle; the dirty looks between the musicians, and the sideward glances from the choir. But when the band finally starts pumping, it’s quite a site to see. The crowd is animated and happy, and I wish I could bring some of this enthusiasm back to New Zealand. After an hour or so of this, the musicians walk off stage, and a lady gets up to speak.

She screams down the microphone and I wince. The volume is so loud that my ear drums are being torn – what’s with Africans and loud noise? She’s praying for the offering they’re about to collect for the church, and I’m horrified as she recites: “We pray for raises and bonuses; we pray for dividends and surpluses; we pray for jobs and promotions...” she continues on this theme for a while. It’s certainly not the meek and mild faith I was expecting, and I worry whether the mainly poor congregation feel as though they have to pay God off for the chance of a better lifestyle. Whatever reason, it just feels wrong. She yells down the microphone for another hour or so, barraging my ears with her cries, and then just as suddenly, it’s all over. Freedom.

****

The days pass quickly, and I find that my time in Kabwe has nearly ended. I spend some more time with my New Zealand friends, mainly playing with the kids and watching rugby, and I wander some more in town by myself. Even on the edge of nowhere, life had begun to settle into routine. I was already used to being the only white guy around, and I was used to having people stare at me. It was a sign that complacency had set in, a sign that it was about time to move on.

Kabwe also marks two months of solo travel in Africa, and I had previously decided to make it my turning point before I head southward, and back to Cape Town. I was becoming restless and knew I needed one last adventure before I returned to civilisation. My plan was to cut through Botswana and maybe Namibia, but I wasn’t interested in seeing yet another game park. While contemplating my next destination over a map of Africa, a name jumps out: Dar es Salaam. The name sounds exotic. It’s the capital of Tanzania, and more alluring, it’s in East Africa.

I investigate and discover a flight to Dar for US$90 from Lusaka. When I tell my kiwi acquaintances, they add an additional attraction. “Don’t bother flying. If you go to Dar, you have to take the train.” It’s a two day journey, and the station is in the town next door, a mere sixty kilometres from Kabwe. I take the plunge and book a ticket.

The Tanzanian express is a two-day sleeper, with restaurant and lounge. First class cabins cost K180,000 (US$45), and sleep four. It’s anyone’s guess how colourful the journey will be, but I intend to find out.

Shortly after booking, I learn exactly how colourful it could become. An American who’d lived in Tanzania told me about the perils of the Tanzanian express. Trains break down multiple times a journey, thieves steal your bags as you sleep, pickpockets take your wallet in the lounge, border officials refuse you entry without a bribe, or worse, men dress as officials take your passport, and never return. It’s the type of stuff that makes travellers’ blood run cold. I ask around, and these stories are all corroborated.

And then I hit a real roadblock. Two days before I leave I discover that I need a yellow fever certificate. This is a major problem. Yellow fever is a live vaccination. The good doctor doesn’t inject you with a vaccine, but rather with the virus itself. I was advised that subjects routinely fall into a fever for several days as the (admittedly weakened) strain courses through their body. Finally, the immune system kicks into gear and develops the antibody to destroy the encroaching hoard. Voila, a week later you are immunised, and earn yourself a stamp for your troubles.

I don’t have a week. This is a problem, so I tell my hosts that Dar is out and Botswana is back on the menu. Jabez is two-minded. He’s been across a number of times and thinks I ought to take my chances. I have a restless night where I began to plan an alternative Botswana route through Maun and to the Kalahari desert. The following morning I tell Jabez that Dar is definitely out. He responds by taking me to a clinic to talk to a local doctor.

A tall man with glasses and greying hair steps out of his surgery. Jabez shakes his hand like an old friend and proceeds to enlighten the doctor about my predicament. I’m travelling tomorrow, and need the vaccine. The response is animated, and after some discussion the doctor turns to me and tells me his thoughts on yellow fever in Tanzania. “It’s ridiculous. There’s barely been a case of yellow fever in Dar es Salaam. You’ll be fine.” He continues to mutter to himself about paranoid officials and senseless bureaucracy. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but apparently I should be safe.

Still, border guards might ask to see a yellow fever certificate. Jabez has to busy himself with work for the afternoon, but he can still help. “I teke you to Pastor, he can teke you the hospital and get you yellow fever certificate.” Shortly thereafter, I’m driven into Kabwe’s town centre and introduced to Pastor, a short dumpy man with a gruff voice. I never learn his real name, but I’m told to follow him.

Pastor takes me to the local hospital where he stops a nurse on her duties. He explains my problem, and the nurse says she will help. “Fifty, fifty kwacha.” For a yellow fever book? “Yez for everything.” She disappears for a few minutes and we are left in a waiting room inside the hospital.

While sitting in the hospital, contemplating my peculiar fate, I discover that Pastor must be some minor celebrity. Women approach him and bow low as they take his hand. Some kneel before him to speak. Several guards are escorting convicts in the local maximum security penitentiary, and abandon their prisoners to walk over to shake Pastor’s hand. Clearly this is a man of influence, however I’m disturbed by the reverence they afford this man. In Kabwe, Jesus is king, but his shepherds, it would appear, don’t mind cashing a little credit on the side.

A few minutes later, the nurse reappears and asks us to follow her. In her office, I’m handed a yellow fever book, and inside is a stamp. It’s backdated. I’m not sure if this is finable, or a imprisonable offense, but apparently I’m now inoculated.

The train leaves the following morning. A part of me will be sad to farewell this tiny town, but most of me wants to move on and see new things. The only thing I know at this stage is that the following afternoon I will be on a train to Dar es Salaam, and two days later, I’ll be on the tropical island of Zanzibar for six days.