Go Go Lightly!

Seven early morning hours on a rickety, congested, diesel-fueled bus — that’s what it takes to reach Lushoto, a colorful little German-influenced town nestled cozily in the center of Tanzania’s Usambara Mountains. 
 
And so we wake up to our taxi driver’s anxious phone call, 5:50 AM, Sunday morning.  We were supposed to be up much earlier so we could reconstruct our deconstructed backpacks, but (don’t be shocked!) we’ve slept through our 5:30 AM alarm due to a boisterous and too-late night out in Dar es Salaam doing African line dances to bad R&B covers amongst the locals and the ex-pats boozily mingling at Sweet Eazy.   Sleep in our eyes, toothbrushes dangling from our mouths, we clambor about the room in our haste to leave, surmising that our bleary-eyed state means that we’re probably in for a very long and unpleasant ride.
 
But little do we know what comforts lie before us!  Arriving with what is apparently plenty of time to spare, we slide into our row on the voluminous bus and expand confidently across the three seats.  I slip my pillow (aka multi-purpose puffy vest) under my neck, sink back into my sweatshirt to ward off the slight morning chill and prepare for a restful ride.  When it is sufficiently occuppied (but fortunately far from full) the bus departs, and Jill and I take turns drifting in and out of sleep as the bus veers us skyward into the mountains.
 
These comforts aren’t to be taken for granted though – they usually don’t last.  This time, no exception.  Because a few hours later, I am jolted awake by a searing pain scrambling inside my right temple.  I lean forward and plaster my cheek against the seat in front of me hoping for some cooling relief.  But it’s hot now – very hot – and my cheek slides slickly up and down the plastic seat cover, lubricated by my accumulating perspiration.  Unappeased, I lift my head and survey the now heavily-populated bus.  A rolling mass of heads wrapped in brightly-colored kangas peeks out from above the seat tops.  Silhouettes of women with babies slung low on their backs fill the aisles.  A man in a cream-colored  taqiyah and matching poly-blend dishdasha now sits thigh to thigh on my left, jovially eyeing Jill and me and seemingly discussing our very conspicuous Mzungu-ness with his friends in the row to our front (we are the only Mzungu on the bus). 
 
Time passes and dehydration grows (the choice: pain in the head due to absence of frequent water replenishment, or pain in the swishing belly due to absence of bathroom breaks).  Roads become more treacherous and inclined.  Jill fidgits nervously, more bug-eyed and pale with every cliff-skimming corner.  But the signs pointing onward to Lushoto are becoming more frequent, and, renewed by this optimism, I decide to strike up a conversation with my new travel companion.  I grab the Lonely Planet out of Jill’s bag, flip to the basic Swahili section and turn confidently toward the man at my side.
 
“Hii ni barabara kwenda Lushoto?” (translation: “Is this the road to Lushoto?”).  The man flashes a big white-toothed smile at me, nods cautiously, and proceeds to openly gossip about me to his friends.  Jill looks at me quizzically. 
 
“What did you say?”
 
“I asked him if this is the road to Lushoto.”  Mocking laughter follows.  Which is deserved.  Of COURSE this is the road to Lushoto.  The bus has DAR – LUSHOTO written in huge block letters on it’s windshield.  There are signs that say “LUSHOTO” with arrows pointing straight ahead cropping up along the side of the road every five minutes.  And there’s only one road.  The road we’re on.  Stupid question.
 
Undeterred, I press on.  “Lushoto hospitali iko wapi?”  (translation: “Where is the Lushoto hospital?”).  The man nods again (curling his eyebrows into a question mark), points straight ahead and continues his gossip. 
 
A brief pause, and then I loudly announce:  “Nina mzio wa nyuki!!!”  (translation:  “I am allergic to bees!!!:)
 
Now the man and his friends seem a bit concerned.  It’s likely they think that I’m on an mysterious, ill-advised several-hour mission from the relatively modern Dar to the backwoods Lushoto hospital to attend to a recent, life-threatening bee sting.  To assuage them, I quickly follow with: “Nahitaji fundi!!”  (translation: “I need a mechanic!!)”
 
This is met with great enthusiasm, as the man points furiously at his friend and proclaims “He is Fundi!  He is Fundi!  Yes!  Yes!  Fundi!”  Hands are slapped mid-air, laughter envelops the knowing nods and we all sink back into our seats with a collective “ahhhhhh…..”, satisfied for the remainder of the trip because we’ve accomplished something.
 
We spend a restful two days in Lushoto, hiking up to Irente Farm for a scrumptuous picnic lunch (homemade cheese/butter/yoghurt/herbed cottage cheese/rye bread/passion fruit juice = yummm), and playing ruthless rounds of Shithead (an apparently universally known drinking/card game) with a couple of strapping South African skippers who are passing through town on their way to Moshi.  Then we set off on a two-day climb up and down mountains, through teeny Muslim villages, past damp, fertile pines and under dense tropical rainforest (with every twitching stick we jump and wonder: Puff Adder?  Boomslang?  Green mamba?  Why aren’t the strapping South African skippers here?  If there’s ever a time for a piggyback ride, it’s now).  After a quick sleep in a quaint hillside convent (we’re probably not the most appropriate guests), we finish with a hike up to the lovely tip-top mountain village of Mtae.
 

 

 
This multi-day sport-fest is aided, though, by a two-hour bus trip from Lukozi to the convent, which is likely the most ridiculous, impossible ride of our trip so far.  People crammed so tightly that there’s only space on the floor for three of my ten toes.  Four and a half people for every three seats.  Jill’s bent 90 degrees forward at the waist, a child’s head enclosed in the inverse curve of her belly.  I’m waiting for the goats to board, and preparing to duck from any low-flying chickens.  We careen past plummeting mountain faces at angles that can only be acheived on two wheels.  I think Jill might vomit.  For comfort, she amuses herself by introducing African school children to the wonders of a Le Tigre video on her iPod.   And in the meantime, I find myself falling even more in love with this place. 
 

 
3:45 AM.  It’s now Thursday morning.  We wake to a sound that’s most likely being made by a too-happy bugler escaped from the circus asylum.  The bus horn?   We are running late for the bus back to Lushoto.  Dear lord who picks this schedule?
 

 
We board what looks like the Porno Party Bus…..lipstick red plastic seats framed by a thick black shag rug somehow fastened (via stapling?) to the ceiling.  I look around for strobing blacklights but only see our headlamps and those of the six other Mzungu on board.  The bus is ready to depart, and the horn screams its lunatic song again.  Calling all clowns! 
 
I’m sleepy.  The horn rises again.  Off to clown college!  Tiny men in red and white suspenders climb off of stilts and in through the windows.  A woman bathed in turquoise sequins rides down the aisle on a well-coiffed tiger.  Jill pulls herself up out of her seat and performs acrobatic swirls on the luggage rack.  I’m violently thrust forward by some sort of road/bus-underside collision.  Eyes now wide open, Jill’s right beside me.  No tigers, no satin-clad men dancing in colorful circles.  Circus antics cancelled by reality. 
 
The “road” is really a series of pockmarks and dips punctuated by the occassional motor-crushing canyon.  The seats vibrate violently – I think this bus could have a second career as an anti-cellulite treatment for the fifties housewife (Benson & Hedges on lips, bon-bons on lap, let the seats jiggle your sins away!).  I discover what the shag carpeting is for when my headlamp grazes the ceiling during a particularly dramatic pothole-induced crash.  It’s padding for my protection!  Seatbelts unnecessary!
 
Which I guess works, because we make it back, safe and sound in Lushoto, and begin preparing for tomorrow’s bus trip to the coast.  We just can’t get enough.

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