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.