We had spent over a week in Arusha, hanging out on the verandah overlooking busy Sokoine Road, where Sam struggled through his Pythagoras or played chess with Morton or cards with me, having juggling lessons or boxing on the small enclosed verandah near our room, filming Sam talking to the Maasai security guy downstairs. Things just happened in Arusha, and it was a fun place to be. Still, the computer drama had artificially extended our stay, and it was time to move on. There’s a German word—Fernweh—which means a desire to travel, and it was what I, and I suspect Sam too, was feeling. We were now accustomed to moving on. I was meant to be meeting Matt in two days, so we had to high-tail it. Next stop Moshi, an hour away at the foot of Kilimanjaro.
On the road again, cloud hovered over the lower reaches of ominous-looking mountains, thrusting up from the acacia-studded plains until they disappeared into the vapour. Wisps and chunks of the cotton veil would break away and descend before evaporating over the granite drops. Grass and scrub was lit sparkling lime where the sun broke through the canopy.
Moshi was a small, quaint town situated at the base of the world’s largest free-standing mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, or Kili for short. Eateries and hotels on tree-lined boulevards maximised their views of Kili from rooftop verandahs. On the dusty streets, hawkers lined up to greet us as soon we left our hotel. Morton and I were experienced enough to mostly strike the right balance between completely ignoring them—and risking an escalation into aggression—and minimising engagement to the simplest of answers, thus avoiding conversation. As we strolled along the volley of questions would start. ‘Hey, sir, where are you from? Do you want safari? I am a mountain guide. Here, take my card.’
Avoiding eye contact, never stopping, we would reply: ‘Australia. Yes, kangaroos. No, thanks. It’s okay, we’re fine. Asante asante.’
Sam was the master though. He either genuinely didn’t notice the hawkers or, smiling constantly, would talk in non sequiturs about something totally off-topic. It completely threw them. Morton and I tried to emulate his approach but we just couldn’t get the hang of it.
We landed in a hotel where there was a kind of a view of the mountain, but it was mainly obscured by the cityscape. I wanted to get out of town to take a photo and maybe some video footage of Kili without a bunch of electrical wires and rooftops in the way.
I asked at reception, but I just seemed to confuse them. ‘So you want to see Kili?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
The girl at reception looked at me blankly. ‘You can see it from the verandah upstairs.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I know, but I want to see it without all the electrical wires and stuff. Is there somewhere out of town with a good view of the mountain?’
‘So you want to go to the mountain?’ I had really confused her.
‘No, just to see the mountain.’
‘You can see it from upstairs.’ Around and around the conversation went. I’m sure they thought I was quite stupid. They eventually organised a taxi to a place that was meant to be half an hour away. We headed off in the cab, zipping through the trucks and buses of the traffic surrounding Moshi, dust and fumes swirling in the dying light, the three of us with not a clue where we were going.
Our taxi driver spoke little English. I just hoped he understood what we were after. I just wanted to take a bloody photo of the mountain! As far as I could tell we were going the wrong direction, skirting the mountain base. It was also taking a lot longer than half an hour. Eventually we headed in towards Kili. He was taking us to the park entrance.
Given the language barrier, there was no way we could explain to him what we actually wanted, and we had a lot of trouble convincing him to turn around as the sun disappeared behind the canopy of cloud surrounding the mountain. We couldn’t see Kili at all. Morton and I shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal. To Sam it mattered even less—just another long drive on the crazy roads of Africa.
We were meeting Kerri and Mama Grace for dinner in their home town. They knew the best place to go: a local steak restaurant run by British expats. The food was excellent and Sam was stoked he could have real ice cream. In between stuffing his face, he talked and talked and our hosts got to know his quirky personality a little better. Sam has a knack, for all his social inappropriateness, of winning people over. Throughout the trip this aspect of him, previously only known to people close to him, was increasingly apparent to those he’d only met once or twice. Due to his frequent exposure to strangers, the time between a first introduction and a prolonged reciprocal conversation was shortening. It also made him a lot more fun.
It had been a good night, despite Sam insisting on patting the head of a small baby on a table of wazungu women sitting nearby. Fortunately, the mother didn’t mind.
The next day was a big one of travel, as we journeyed east across northern Tanzania to Dar es Salaam. It would be our last long bus trip in Africa. There was the walk to the bus station with Sam whinging constantly, a crappy roadside coffee with me whinging constantly, and then nine and a half hours on a crowded bus.
The Jurassic landscape of northern Tanzania, with its mountains soaring up from the flat plains, gave way to a more stereotypical Africa: acacia and thorn bush scrub scattered with roadside stalls selling mobile phone data cards, warm soda bottles and a cornucopia of Chinese-made just-about-anything. Piles of burning rubbish smoked the air, young men filled their boda boda tanks with petrol from Coca-Cola bottles and brightly swathed women, shrouded and veiled, swayed along, their cargo motionless atop their heads and infants on their backs poking out from their robes. When we slowed, children waved at the bus and shouted ‘Jumbo’ (Hello) and ‘Mumbo?’ (How are you?).
Our progress, as always, seemed to falter as we neared our destination. As the bus crept along, I was having trouble deciding which was moving more slowly, the bus or the plot of the melodramatic Swahili movie flickering on the television suspended from its ceiling. There was no escaping it; you had to look at the screen. One-dimensional characters (with baddies inevitably getting their comeuppance), hilarious special effects (devils and spirits invading the souls of the protagonists), and a music score that made spaghetti westerns look understated were interspersed with more modern African elements. Mobile phones were omnipresent, money meant everything and HIV was a common theme. Sam was mesmerised, Morton and I were anaesthetised.
We crawled into the Dar es Salaam bus station. While a city of three million people, Dar had a reputation for being, well, boring. Several years earlier, Morton had lived in the city for six months, so it was good to have a knowledgeable guide handy. He organised a cab and we ducked and dodged our way across town in the ridiculous traffic, past embassies and shopping malls, through shanty suburbs and roadworks, until we finally reached our hotel, one that Morton was familiar with, on the north shore of the city.
A familiar ritual followed: unloading packs, organising laundry, sort out wi-fi access, deciding on dinner, checking emails and just lying down for a spell. I tried to get Sam to help me in such situations, but sometimes I was just too knackered to bother.
Matt arrived at our hotel after spending two hours crossing the city from the airport in the peak-hour traffic. It was great to see him.
He looked at Sam and did a double take. ‘Sam, you’re so tall! And what’s going on with your hair?’
Sam flapped, bounced up and down, and smiled at Matt, peering at him through the greasy long hair covering his eyes. ‘Matt Rickard is in Africa!’
We headed to a beach-side restaurant nearby. Sam devoured a pizza and we got devoured by mosquitoes; I had forgotten the insect spray. Matt and I had a big catch-up, and Matt got to know Morton, although he kept mistaking his name and nationality: Morton the Dane became Milton the Norwegian.
We tried to figure out what to do in our time together. Go to Zanzibar? Travel up the coast? How long should we stay in Dar? Sam, what do you think? Sam talked and talked but it wasn’t quite on-topic: Harry Potter, The Incredibles, The Simpsons, Mugabe, ‘Idiot’ Amin, Hermione Granger.
Matt turned to me. ‘Er, Sam talks a lot now!’
The next day we cruised around the city with Morton as our guide. I tried to get Sam to take the lead but it was difficult with the four of us, and it was also a challenging environment. The roads were, like in all African cities, quite dangerous, and the footpaths were obstacle courses: impromptu shops, parked cars, tut-tuts, motorbikes, boxes, crates, displays of CDs, clothing or electrical equipment on racks. Anything, everything, and then some.
On a corner a man was making a racket, somewhere between singing, rapping and just being a pain in the arse. He was surrounded by a crowd of thirty or so people, some of whom were taking pictures on their phones, their interest perhaps piqued by his oddness.
As we skirted the small crowd I accidentally stepped on a man’s foot. I immediately apologised, but he grabbed my upper arm and squeezed, hard. I winced in pain as I continued to profusely apologise. But then with his other hand he grabbed Sam. At this point I got seriously worried.
It was now a scuffle. Sam cried, ‘Hey, Dad, he is hurting me!’
‘Let him go!’ I yelled. I pushed the man, who let go of Sam but continued to squeeze my arm. His eyes were bloodshot and hazy, and I realised he was stoned. I managed to hit his hand away from my arm. People were jostling and yelling all around us. In the middle of the melee, the man suddenly smiled, put his hands up in the air and retreated. He’s up to something, I thought to myself.
Matt sidled up beside me. ‘Check your bag. Some people were close to it.’ I checked the daypack I had been carrying; it was closed and intact and the stills and video camera were both inside.
Morton took the lead. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
We headed for the nearest taxi stand and tumbled into a cab, out of the glare, dust, noise, heat and chaos. As I hit the tatty vinyl back seat, the penny dropped. ‘My wallet is missing.’
‘Fuck, really? What was in it?’ Matt said.
I checked my money belt as I replied. ‘Only about thirty bucks. All the big stuff and credit cards are in my money belt.’ I felt cross. ‘Damn, I knew he was up to something…But I trod on his foot…’ I was turning the events over in my head.
Morton joined in. ‘He probably stuck it under yours on purpose.’
‘Bastard!’ My anger was rising, as was my embarrassment. I examined my arm. Some bruises were coming up.
Sam wasn’t happy. ‘The police should arrest them. They should apologise for stealing your wallet.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon, Sam,’ I replied, reminding myself that, unpleasant as it was, this was probably another of life’s valuable lessons for him.