I have never experienced

Anything quite like the onslaught of what all tourist guided call "touts" than I did at the Arusha central market and bus depot. It's out of control.

Luckily I had a little something in my back pocket this morning when I went looking for my ride: knowledge of approximately where the Moshi bus stand was and of the ticket price (tsh 3,000).

But when push came to shove and I was told that the Moshi bus was actually on the other side of the stand, I took it in stride.

When approached (extremely aggressively) by a guy who was pressuring me to get on a full sized bus with him and one other guy that was 25,000 (but when pressed only 3,000?!) and that was leaving in an hour (which made no sense, as it was actually pulling out of the bus stand as we were negotiating/arguing), I turned him down cold and made my way to the bus I had been more or less directed to.

The fare was 3,000, which I paid and got a receipt for.

That's when things got complicated.

The guy I paid disappered and came back waving my money at me and talking about a grocery store. I kept saying I had no idea what he was talking about (because I didn't). Finally another man with marginally better English came back and he started waving my money at me. I gave him the receipt. He gave me my money. He threw away the receipt.

And that's when I realized that he was the man who had misdirected me to the bus I was on.

They grabbed my luggage and zigzagged me through the busses to get me on the actual bus that was actually about to leave with about 5 minutes to spare.

People mostly got your back. (Except for the scammers, of course.)