Coastal Humidity

Our travel day to Pangani was long and hot. I had tried to buy tickets the day before but one of our new friends – he’s a friend; he’s added me on What’s App. I just can’t remember his name – said that we didn’t need to. Buses to Tanga (where we would have to change buses) leave every 30 minutes. I kept asking which of there were the fast buses to Tanga. “Oh, they’re all fast. Four hours to Tanga. All of them.”

Haven’t sworn on this blog yet, but I have to start. Bullshit.

I knew, from my previous visits, that there are regular buses to Tanga but that two of the companies are known for being quicker than the other ones. Well, we didn’t catch either of those companies. What should have been a 4-hour ride to Tanga, turned into a 6.5-hour bus ride. This was followed up by the slow bus to Pangani. It was slow because it was one of the big busses that drives the route so it had to stop in every village to pick-up and drop-off supplies. Ben, an Englishman we had met in Lushoto, left an hour after us and arrived in Pangani almost two hours before us.

If you could see my face right now, it’s making the Queen Victoria ‘We are not amused’ face.

To add to the joy of the bus ride, once we were out of the Usambara Mountains, the temperature was a cool 32°C with a humidity of 75%. That was it for TC. No more Tanzanian bus rides after that one.

On the upside, this is how the ride ended.
It was followed by a beer. Then another beer.

You will all be relieved to know that Fawlty Tower’s Manuel has been reincarnated as the well-intentioned but social awkward Balthazar of Seaside Community Centre Hostel, Pangani. In his odd, inept way, he kind of made Pangani for us. Our first night there, we decided to stick to the hostel for dinner. Balthazar brought us a menu. We ordered and he let us know that they were out of everything we wanted. What did they have, you ask? Fish. Lots of fish, such as red snapper. Oh, we love snapper. We’ll have that. They’re all out of red snapper. If our plates had arrived with chicken on them instead of fish, I would not have been surprised.

TC and Ben discovered that when you order fish in Tanzania, you get the whole fish. Head, eyes, angry little mouth included. I knew this; I have no idea why I didn’t think to tell them. We ended up ordering a larger fish divided between the three of us. I got the tail which was easy to eat. Ben got the middle, and poor TC got the head.

This was a different order of fish, but you get the idea.
Also, I obviously have no problem with my food looking at me as I eat it.

The thing was, this continued the entire time we were there. Settling our bill after a few beers on the beach? I’d like to pay now. You pay? Yes. Now? Yes. Okay, so you will pay now. Yes. Okay. [Awkward pause while he stands there looking at you.] I will bring you the bill now, yes? Oh good grief, YES!

Perhaps the best service we got was when there was no service because everything
stopped for a Tanzanian Premier League game.

Our days in Pangani were very lazy. For one thing, there isn’t much to do. For another it, it is so hot by 11am that you don’t want to do much. And the humidity! It didn’t matter if you showered in the morning or the evening; the minute you stepped out of the shower, you started to sweat. Sitting in the shade on the beach wasn’t too bad because there was a slight breeze. Walking around town involved multiple stops to have a cold something; pop, water, beer. It didn’t really matter, it just had to be cold!

The view from one of our cold liquid refreshment stops

We lost Ben to beaches on the south side of the river, but we picked up Lucas, a nomadic Dutchman, in the process. He happily came with us to eat dinner, drink beer, and watch soccer his first night. He and TC hit it off and as TC was game to head straight to Zanzibar from Pangani but I had no interest in two weeks on Zanzibar, they decided to head off together while I headed back to Tanga with the intention of heading to Morogoro.

The Pangani ferry crossing the Pangani River

My plans changed when I got to Tanga and had missed the bus I was hoping to catch. Instead of play bus-hopscotch to get to Morogoro, I hunkered down in Tanga for a night intending to catch the direct bus the next day. I’d quote Robert Burns, but I’ve already done that. I decided on a whim to fly to Pemba, part of the Zanzibar Archipelago, for a few days before catching a boat to Stone Town. 

The dhows of Pangani They head out at night to fish.
If you sit on the beach, you can watch their lights blink on the horizon.