Tanga/Pangani

Hello there!

Here’s an update on my weekend with Jake in Tanga and Pangani:

Tuesday morning, Jake and I left Monduli on the daladala to Arusha at 8AM. After having been accosted by many pushy bus attendants in Arusha’s main bus stand, we found a ticketing agent who was slightly less than pushy and asked him for prices to Tanga. He led us into his alleyway ticketing office, and showed us a price list that boasted a Tsh. 12,500 fare for reserved seats. Unwilling to brave the bustling bus station for cheaper tickets, we purchased two one ways from Air Bus, as this company called itself.

The ride from Arusha to Tanga was about seven hours long – much along unpaved roads. Well, I should say that the last two hours were spent on unpaved roads, and that those two hours seemed endless. One redeeming part to this leg of the journey was the changing scenery, however – lots of orange trees and palm trees, and papaya trees.

Anyway, back to the chronology:

The Tanga bus stopped in Moshi to pick up some more passengers. This time, I enjoyed Moshi from the protection of my bus window, and avoided being accosted by annoying taxi drivers, and thieves out to steal my toothpaste (did I tell you about that? A thief stole my toothpaste in Moshi at the bus terminal last weekend! I was furious.)

Upon arrival to Tanga, it was nearly dusk. We needed to find a place to stay quickly, as our guidebook strongly suggests NOT walking around after dark (although this is suggested almost everywhere but Pangani). We were in search of a hotel called the Ocean Breeze, but seemed to have some difficulties in finding the place.

We came across another decent looking hotel, and asked the receptionist for prices. Tsh. 10,000 per night for a room with no mosquito nets, he said. We asked if any rooms had mosquito nets, and the proprietor explained to us quite matter-of-factly, “No, there is no need for nets. We have air conditioners.” Right. Like the air conditioning chases away malaria carrying mosquitoes. I don’t quite think so. So we refused that room, and continued our search for the Ocean Breeze.

A young street vendor of packaged cashews saw that we were a bit directionless, and offered to point us in the right direction. He was kind and quite innocent, so we took his offer and planned to buy some cashews from him in a gesture of thanks for his help. We walked through a very humid night, about fifteen blocks to the Ocean Breeze hotel with out guide. We purchased cashews and he was rather pleased.

Relieved at our final arrival at our destination, we wiped the sweat from our brows (we are highly unaccustomed to humid heat because of Monduli’s severe water shortages). We were prepared to pay nearly any price for a room with mosquito netting – but alas, there was no vacancy at the Ocean Breeze hotel. Our lovely receptionist offered us a taxi for Tsh. 2000 to the Kola Prieto hotel, which she assured us offered rooms equipped with mosquito nets. We offered the cabby Tsh. 1000, and he agreed. We took off for the Kola Prieto.

Turns out, the Kola Prieto charges Tsh. 25,000 and ALSO does not provide mosquito nets! But for the sake of safety at this time of night, we took the room and decided to ghetto rig a mosquito net from a light fixture over the sleeping area.

Aah looks like we're losing power... I'm going to post this. More later.