Arusha

For $2 more, I could have had a bathroom. We have one bathroom break on this 10 hour bus ride, and I drank an awful lot of water this morning. Thank God the TD hasn’t set in yet.

I had a choice between “Luxury” and “Super Luxury,” when I purchased my ticket yesterday, and without a second thought I purchased the lower class option. It’s more authentic…and cheaper…and “Luxury” already sounded painfully lavish. Now, a naming convention where “Luxury” is the cheapest option you can find is inherently suspect, but the bus actually wasn’t so bad. Not only were there no chickens nibbling at my feet, but the seats were comfy with ample leg room. Had my equally ample neighbor not also been occupying half of my seat, the trip might have been slightly more comfortable, but hey, it’s better than livestock. (Note: I have never actually ridden in the back of a truck with assorted livestock, but it’s on my list of life goals.)

Driving north to Arusha, the land outside is so mesmerizing that I don’t want to unglue my eyes…except to close them. I am so unexplainably tired and briefly wonder if I’ve contracted some strange, insidious disease. It’s probably just the jet lag – I’ve only forgotten my malaria meds once so far. Besides, I’m pretty sure that the travel clinic shot me so full of vaccinations that I could kill any would-be parasitic invader within a 10-meter radius just by looking at it.

As we first turn our backs on the Indian Ocean, the landscape outside is thick and brushy, then steep mountains erupt from the flatland. The mountains are abrupt – like in Mexico and Mongolia – and they look so near that I’m not quite sure if they are small mountains or just very big hills. Climbing farther inland, the land dries out and the soil turns sandy between wispy trees and sparse grass. There seems to be a cactus plantation, with row after orderly row of spiky bushes. I’ve never seen such an unruly plant look so in line.

Like so much of the metropolis, the tiny roadside villages are a bizarre mishmash of centuries and lifestyles. Rickety thatched-roof sheds stand with walls of laced together branches that bend and point in all directions like the uncoordinated limbs of a growing boy. Next to them, between stalls of corrugated tin, stand smooth concrete buildings with decorative fencing. Brick walls crumble nearby. Children in Osh-kosh-bigosh jean shorts play on a pile of dirt, while women in bright cloth wraps carry groceries home on their heads.

Our bus slows suddenly. We see another bus – a Dar Express, just like us – heading southbound, stopped on the road. Beneath its front wheels is a motorcycle, a pikipiki. We all press our faces against the window as we pass – there is no blood, nobody with his head in hands – a crowd has gathered but there seems to be no injured victim. After a moment, we pick up speed and continue our climb to Arusha.
Closing in on Arusha nearly 1300m up, I notice the flowers for the first time. They are bright purple and seem to promise some sort of respite. The highlands are green and chilly – I reach for my sweatshirt as we pull into the dusty bus station. Craig and Susan and Philipp are waiting anxiously after having watched the last bus – the Super Luxury bus - pull in without their grad student on board. In the yellowing light of the early evening, we smile and wave, shake hands and high-five. It is Saturday night, and I am one step closer to the Serengeti.