Standard African public transport experiences!

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We'd so far endured some pretty crazy and scary transport experiences in Africa and even our previous journey from NTHN Mozambique to the border where we were taunted by AK47 wielding militia and had our passports held to ransom by by border officials, only to be stopped and searched no less than three times by corrupt police looking for pocket lining on the Tanzanian side, paled in comparison to the journey we took from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam. (For the benefit of our mothers' blood pressure we have decided not to blog that particular journey, but you can certainly message us if you would like to receive the "black market" version!) Even after the conductor on our Dar bound bus made everyone switch seats so we were all sitting in our allocated spots, starting with the Mzungus first of course, we still managed to leave on time. Since entering East Africa our staus had changed from Estrangeiro to Mzungu! We'd been bouncing along for a couple of hours on possibly the worst road we'd so far travelled on when out of the blue the bus lurched to the right and amidst the panic and confusion we ran off the road. We came very close to rolling and when it came to rest our bus was perched at a very precarious angle. In typical African fashion everyone had to be the first off the bus giving no thought to the fact that the ensuing scrum was likely to tip us over. When the three of us finally managaed to alight we saw that we hadn't even been driving on the bloody road! Once again in typical African fashion, there was a wide flat tarmac right next to the goat track that we'd been travelling on. We decided that we would soon have to return to Africa simply for the chance to travel on all these amazing looking roads that were under construction! The driver, mechanic, luggage boy and conductor all tried to dig us out but of course their efforts were futile. For Danielle and myself it was all part of yet another adventure, even though we still hadn't fully recovered from the border ordeal from the previous day, but for our mate Tiff the clock was ticking. He had a plane to catch from Nairobi. After a couple of hours sitting on the side of the real road, a Caterpillar that had been doing roadworks, again on the real road, came along and on the fourth attempt was able to pull us back onto the goat track. A cheer erupted from the crowd and everyone who had previously been fighting to be first off the bus were again fighting, but this time to be first onto it! We set off again but were hanging onto the edge of our seats. In order to make up for lost time our driver endeavoured to break the land speed record for a pre fifties sherman tank on a road that hadn't increased from it's previous rating as the worst goat track so far! We travelled like that for a couple of hours and I began to wonder if Danielle had been an African in a previous life. Like many of our fellow passengers she was sound asleep. I was too uncomfortable and concerned about my head going through the roof to sleep. It was a welcome relief to stop for a half hour to lunch and stretch the legs, as it was when the post lunch road seemed to improve. No sooner though had we mentioned this when we heard a very loud clunk and our bus ground quickly to a halt, in the middle of a massive puddle of mud no less. At least this time while we waited for the scrum to exit the bus we weren't in danger of it tipping over. A lovely Kenyan man whom Danielle had befriended in Mtwara, and who was not only the coach of the football team that was travelling with us, but who had lived and worked at the AIS in Canberra for several years, was able to tell us that our rear axle had snapped. No bloody wonder! With the beating our bus had taken it was amazing that we had made it this far! Once again we waited on the side of the road for several houras, but this time we couldn't sit down as the whole area was a muddy quogmire. We watched as buses and trucks alike went around our bus and on two separate occasions the football team was called in to lend some muscle to vehicles that had become stuck in the mud along side us. Eventually a large cement transport lorry came along and offered us all a lift on the top. We thought it was a little unfair that out of the forty or so new passengers the three mzungus were the only ones who were made to pay, but if it meant moving on, who were we to argue? It was getting late in the day and our previous vehicle certainly wasn't going anywhere! As for getting our money back, we didn't even bother! We climbed atop the truck and albeit very slowly, we were again moving. The football team we an arrogant bunch of so and sos and certainly went out of their way to make us feel uncomfortable, but when Danielle and I performed first aid on one of them who had a dislocated knee, using our impressive looking first aid kit and two short lengths of sugar cane as as a splint, we had twenty new best friends. The patient was happy as Larry. We pumped a heap of Valium into him and he ended up having the most comfortable trip out of any of us. The night sky was as clear and bright as we'd seen and we saw shooting star after shooting star. We used the Southern Cross to keep track of our course. When close to midnight our ride stopped we didn't think much of it but when the driver switched off the engine and got our we all collectively groaned. "Here we go again." It was again Coach who relayed the news to us. Up ahead a truck was bogged and the road was blocked. On either side of the bogged truck were atleast half a dozen vehicles lined up and waiting, somehow, to pass. Seeing as though we were in the middle of lion infested no where, we weren't prepared to get off the truck and settled in for another long wait. Our lorry was easily the biggest and after a council of all the drivers and just about everyone else, bar the mzungus, a path was cleared for us. We drove to the bogged truck and managed to atleadt tow it out of the way so that the others could pass. We had managed to pull trough several vehicles when another truck became bogged next to the still bogged truck and now it was again impossible for anyone to pass. After yet another hour or so the football team came to the rescue. Not for the trucks, but this time for us. Coach had called the team bus to come from Dar to collect them and invited us to join them. We certainly didn't need to be asked twice! It was another very uncomfortable journey, too many footballers and not enough space. Adding to our woes it was now pouring with rain and we could feel the bus sliding all over the place, of course our driver, probably still grumpy after being awoken in the middle of the night wouldn't slow down. Atleast they were playing good music and the mood lightened a little when Coach announced that the mornings training session had been cancelled. Coach was a little concerned that we wanted to be dropped at the dodgy Ubunga bus station in the dark, but Tiff still had a plane to catch and we had decided to accompany him as far as Arusha. After 25 hours of travel from Mtwara, we were tired, grumpy, agitated and certainly a little on edge when we thanked Coach for the ride and friendship and wished his team good luck for their afternoon match. We prepared ourselves to be mobbed by touts and opportunists outside the station. With Dani between us we formed a scrum of our own and pushed through the pack with surprising ease. We explained to Dani later that she made a great hooker! Tanzanian buses are like Ken Done decorated QANTAS planes - painted and embellished with outrageous colour combos as well as the standard Man U or Arsenal logo, with flowers and pictures of the president in the front windscreen and prayers and quotes like God is watching our bus. The way they drive in Tanzania we hoped their was some higher presence watching over us! There was at most 15 minutes between the time of farewelling Coach to when we were again on the road, this time in the Pink Chocolate Spider Team Arsenal Bus. Compared to the previous two days it was a welcome event free journey where we only stopped for a lunch break and also for the standard police road blocks. We reached Arusha after about 7 hours making the total time of our journey from Mtwara a record breaking 32 hours. We couldn't imagine how Tiff was going to cope with a further 8 hours in front of him, provided of course between Arusha and Nairobi remained incident free. Good luck mate! We once again had to deal with hordes of touts and commission seekers but once again we were surprised at the ease in which we found and settled into a hotel. We agreed not to get on a bus for at least a week!

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Photos

sundowner
If only we knew of the journey we were about to take!

Bad Omen
Tanzanians are very recless drivers!

Goat track trundle
Inspecting the damage from the real road.

Yet another crash
The bad omens were adding up!

Stuck in the mud
The football team was called in.

pissed off
cant we believe we are going no where, again!

Tanzanian Embellishment
One of the more sedate looking buses