Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The bus trip was according to the people we booked from supposed to last 10 hours, which I knew was bull. I guessed perhaps 15, even 20 hours as it is a looooong way, about 800 km to our destination. We got in and the bus started as usual, as he had stole everything he had, and we made good progress. But after a while we started to take up more and more passenger, and it seemed as the 'express' bus was more of a ordinary bus, which would do every thing possible to make a buck. The bus stopped at every small village and drove large de tours to look up people who had booked. But we could live with that, it could not get any worse. Wrong! As the temperature rose, so did the body odor of the men on the bus. The sum of all these BOs were so strong that is was like someone punched me in the nose. Soon this would be forgotten as we too would start to sweet too, as this was not a 10 hour bus trip. After driving the first part on paved road we started to drive on gravel roads and the shaking was immense. At this time I was starting to get annoyed as we did not make any progress at all. We had also stopped to fix a empty hole above the driver where there used to be a window. At the rain started we sat in the bus and got wet!!!! After taping something over it we continued. We took up more people and drove on gravel roads and everyone smelled really badly. Then the tale of the gas tanks started. There was a great debater if the bus should bring these tanks. Bryce and I preyed to God that they should not, and after taking them in and out FOUR TIMES!!! They finally took them out. We were relieved. We drove on and had brakes everywhere, and occasionally we stopped to fix the hole in the bus, as next time it started to rain it was dripping on the driver. After driving a while on a very dusty road, a pick up caught up with us, and what do you know, he had the famous gas tanks with him, and this time we shouldn't get away. I went out so ask what was going on and they assured me that they were empty. I felt them and they seemed empty without me being an expert on the topic. But we both knew that if they were full and just were lying unstrapped in the storage room, the bus was now a ticking bomb, as the road was really bumpy and gas could easily enter the engine room and ignite!!!! We tried not to think about it. By this time we were all sweaty and smelly as the bus did not have air condition. Sometimes we stopped and some people went outside, as it was in Swahili we did not understand that it was a pie break until it was too late. On the radio there was annoying Swahili music and the speaker was just above my head so I got it as loud as it got. It was hard to sleep as the road was to bumpy, and I really wondered when we should hit the main road again. And then it struck me: This was the main road!!!! As 50 % of paved roads are in South Africa, the rest is scarcely distributed among the rest, and Tanzania being very poor, they can not have that many roads. I was beginning to understand that we had a long day ahead. As we had been driving for around 12 hours and the darkness came, the roads took a turn for the worse, and then I mean really really bad, as in not even funny bad. After half an hour on something that seems as being just wilderness, they went out again to check the gas tanks, and we both thought: WTF!!!! If the tanks were empty there would not have been anything to worry about, but as they went out because of the bumpy road they might have been full. From then on I was really paranoid. I thought that this awful road would end any minute, as it is the worst road I have ever driven on, and people were being tossed around like puppets. But instead they got worse. I was nor feeling well as we had not eaten or been drinking much, and the roads being a mayhem on its own with three full gas tanks running loose did not help. When we after about four hour on this road from hell entered paved road I was really relived. Every hour or sow we were getting stopped by the police asking some question, but about what I don't know. After speaking with this guy it became clear that we weren't to get to Moroporo until the next morning, and that we had to sleep on the bus. As the bus stopped after driving for 18 hours, the fresh air stopped, and the stench from BO again became apparent. It was around 20-25 degrees and the stench lay over the bus as a carpet making it very hard to sleep. We started to drive again around six in the morning, and we got to watch a beautiful sunrise over the Tanzanian savannah, through the whole in the bus, where the temporary plastic again had fallen off. As the fresh air started to come in through the whole we got some sleep again, as the snoring became more silent. After 26 hour we started to get close to the place where we had to get of and change bus. I had been thinking a bit about what we should do, and the plan now was to get to Dar es Salaam and get on the train there to avoid another 30 hour in bus or so. When they came to kick us of the bus I explained that we were going to Dar to catch the train from there. Another four hours in beautiful scenery led us to the bus station outside Dar. We got a taxi driver to drive us to the Tasara train station and drop us off there. As we got there we realized that it was Sunday. We had lost track of time and we had no idea what so ever what day it was. The train leaves on Tuesdays and Fridays so we went in to town to get some cash from an ATM. I had the choice between 100, 200, 300, or 400 000 shilling. I withdrew 400 000 shilling without thinking much about that. But what the ATM offered me was 100, 200, 300 or 400 dollars. I went to Bryce and told him that I had good and bad news: The bad were that I withdrew way to much money for only being here two days, the good news was that we now had no other choice than pursuing the dream: We're going to Zanzibar!!!!!
Again, having no planes can get you very far and also places you did not think you's go. So stay tuned as you can never know what happens next at Oyvindsandve's travel blog ;)
