Lovely Lushoto

The bus ride to Lushoto, high up in the mountains north of Dar, takes 6 hours only because we stop at every 3 house village and random person standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere along the way. Underneath the bus or wherever there is space inside the bus, the bus-luggage-boys will huck a random bag of vegetables, a mattress, or full wobbly cardboard boxes tied with twine and leaking who knows what. Some people seem to pay, others don’t, students, travelers, weirdos, I really don’t have a clue. Nor do I care. I have a seat under my bum and a window to stare out of, I’m doing just fine.

The first two hours of the journey were complete bliss. I was on the move again; a traveler, doing and seeing things that were brand new AND I had a sleeping child in my lap. The mama who plunked down beside me was struggling a bit with the maybe year and a half year old that was trying to sleep on her. Ummm… want me to take him? Please? And she hands him over. So there’s me, Whitey McWhite Girl with a sleeping African child wrapped up in my sarong cuddling in my arms. You should have seen the heads snapping back for a second look when we passed by slowly enough for people to see through the windows. *sigh* Heaven. But my window was half missing so it didn’t shut all the way. As we headed a bit further north, the wind that I was quite enjoying was getting a bit cool. Mama and I decided that I needed to hand him back over to her, out of the wind. And it started to go downhill from there…

The scenery changed from dry, flat, brush land to green, green, green rolling hills then bigger, greener, steeper mountains. A very narrow switchback road wound through whole villages with pretty, tidy rows of farming land that looked like they had been carved quite perfectly out of the side of these dewy, shimmering, rain-forest covered inclines. As we drove higher and stopped frequently to let off people or parcels, I noticed two things; the people outside were wearing heavier and heavier clothing and the chorus of vomiting bus passengers was almost comical, if it wasn’t so completely gross. I kept my eyes closed as we were in motion, mostly to avoid becoming an unwelcome addition to the nauseating melody but was sure to take a quick look around at each of the many stops. Yep, clouds are getting lower and the toques and puffy jackets are out. I’m in cold country.

Oh and I forgot to tell you about the running of the food vendors at each and every bus stop. People selling everything from drinks, fruits and vegetables, snacks, random household items, and full loaves of sliced white bread (this one I don’t get. Everywhere I’ve been, there are hundreds of people selling these loaves of bread but you’ll never ever find someone selling a sandwich and I’ve never seen a local eating bread with any of their dishes. I don’t know.) Anyway, they swarm the bus, often running at full speed with cardboard boxes filled neatly with their wares or plastic tubs balanced quite delicately atop their heads. They try desperately to get your attention through the open windows and had the bus not been as high off the ground as it was, I’m pretty sure they would have reached right through to grab your attention. People on the bus yell and point to what they want, purchase is tossed in, money is tossed out. It’s a complete madhouse of noise and capital enterprise. It’s what I imagine the floor of the NYSE to look like after the opening bell has been rung. Buy! Sell! Buy! Sell! And as the bus pulls away, these nutbar vendors continue to yell and shout while running AFTER the bus, like they’re going to make a last minute Hail Mary pass to someone who just realized that they really, really, REALLY want that 2 kgs of oranges that they didn’t want 5 minutes ago when the bus was standing still. How they don’t get run over and killed is beyond me. Absolute gong show.

But they work hard for their money. The touts at the bus stations, however, are my least favourite people on the planet. Least favourite. I can go from peaceful bliss to utter rage in the span of 3 seconds flat when dealing with these icky, aggressive slimebags. And yes, they are slimebags. They are everywhere in the world so this is nothing new to me, but again, the aggressive nature of it all here just pushes me over the edge. Quaint, small Lushoto was no different. There was a lady who was sitting behind me on the bus who spoke English and she was so concerned about the touts at this stop that she got off the bus with me, stood guard while I retrieved my massive backpack from under the bus, and offered to escort me to a guesthouse even though this wasn’t her stop! Wow. Thank you, darling! But no, no, you’ve done more than enough already, thank you so much. She pointed me in the direction I wanted to go and hopped back on the bus, looking very, very concerned. Hmmm… what am I in for?

I’m pretty good at giving the shove off to whomever thinks they are about to become my new best friend but for some reason, my skills weren’t quite up to par yet as this was only the very first day in a completely new place all on my own. This Rasta kid, looked maybe 20 years old, with all of his front teeth rotted down to black-edged points latched on to me and would not leave me alone. He followed me from guest house to guest house as I checked out my options and tried to convince me to come to his tourist information shop. At first it was “No, thank you. I’m not interested, thank you. I’m okay, thank you.” He tried to get as much information out of me as possible and was nervously trying on the hey, I’m your new best friend act but failing miserably. I’m guessing he was either incredibly dumb or incredibly desperate. Maybe some of both.

I managed to be rude enough to shake him just before I checked into a suitable place to stay. Dropped my bag, put on a few extra layers, and headed back down into town to check things out. The centre of town was the low point (physically and emotionally) and everything else around branched out and up. Up, up, up with a massive bag on my bag. Uhh yeah, haven’t done this in a while. Holy crap. Wandered through the nice little dirt road town blatantly ignoring all of the shouts for my attention and continuing to brush off Rastafang who seemed to pop up freaking everywhere! Sat down at a place that I thought was off the main route as I was starving and as I’m writing in my journal, friggin Rastafang shows up out of nowhere and sits down with me! Seriously, I almost punched the guy. He kept talking, I kept writing. I couldn’t believe it. And I had had enough. So as kindly as I could, I told him to piss the hell off, that I wanted nothing to do with him, his company, or his stupid Rasta lifestyle, and that he was starting to make me very, very angry. He eventually left and made sure to yell his “Mambo rafiki! (How’s it going, friend!) from a fair distance away whenever he saw me again. I continued to ignore him. There are some times in life when persistence does not pay off, my friend, does not pay.

So blah, blah, blah, it got cold and damp, I walked as much as I could, it’s always pitch black by 7pm in equatorial Africa, so shortly thereafter I was curled up under the blankets of my room trying to understand how I could be freezing my face off in AFRICA!!! Woke up to cold and rain the next morning and waited it out for as long as I could then bundled up in every article of clothing that I had underneath my rain coat and a handy dandy clear rain poncho (oh the looks I was getting!) and headed out to this viewpoint that was supposed to 8kms away and spectacular. Again, up and up and up in the drizzly rain but the further I got from the centre of town, the pretty the view and the nicer the people. Despite the miserable weather, I was a happy girl.

I followed the red, muddy road through small villages where nobody stared or grabbed at me to come into their shop but offered kind hellos and genuine smiles with their greetings. This was what I was looking for. As I walked higher, the clouds got lower and I ended up feeling like a gorilla in the mist. The viewpoint access was alongside a gorgeous lodge built to take full advantage of what is supposed to be a most spectacular sight. What I got? The edge of the cliff in the middle of a thick, grey cloud. It was really quite spooky. I couldn’t see a meter down. There was nothing. Looking over the edge, it was like the absolute end of the world. The rocky lip of the cliff, then nothing. A very creepy, strange feeling. I stood there feeling quite foolish but still happy that I made the trek up as the people on the way through were worth it. The manager of the lodge invited me in to look around and walked through the nearest village with me for a little ways back down, introducing me to people along the way. Sweetheart of a little old man who spoke excellent English and studied for a number of years in Cuba. Again, no view, but completely worth the trip.

Got back to town soaking wet, full of mud, and absolutely exhausted. 16kms was a nice little morning jaunt for this lazy butt. Massive market had enveloped any available space in the town upon my return so I wandered for a while until I was ready for collapse. Ate at a little side vendor where I was obviously the centre of conversation but treated so nicely, was helped to sort out my bus ticket for the next morning (that was surprisingly legitimate), and just chilled out. A very good day indeed.

The next morning, as luck would have it, I came down to the bus station 45 minutes , just because you never know, and the little food vendor guy from the day before got me on a bus that was leaving straight away rather than waiting. Sweet deal. He was a cutie pie of a little guy and shook my hand several times before giving me an awkward little hug and sending me on my way. See!!! I KNEW there were nice people out there! I knew it!

It wasn’t long before a strange young man plopped himself right up beside me and thought I would be a good opportunity to show off his English skills. Dude, it’s 7am and you smell bad, talking to you is the last thing I want right now. He spent the majority of the trip leaning full body up against me despite me taking up half my seat and jabbing a few of my super pointy elbows into his side. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, he hands me a piece of paper and pen and asks me for my email address. This happens all the time. People I have barely spoken to and will never speak to again ask for my email address. Apparently this is the thing to do. So whoever in this world has the email address: jberton@hotmail.com, I am truly sorry. I’m giving them AN email address, just not mine. Yes, yes, yes, I’m a big, fat meanie, but come on now! At least if someone at home is asking for your phone number, they’ve bought you a drink first. When you have been in my personal space making my journey exceptionally uncomfortable because you are on my ass and smell like ass, I do not want to be your pen pal (Is that a thing anymore, pen pal?) or email buddy or facebook friend. Really, I don’t. But thanks.

So my quick and cold trip to Lushoto was surprisingly similar to the mountains of Vietnam and despite small, short lived annoyances, this was a good start to my journey. Very good indeed.