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Published: October 12th 2009
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Market sellers at the train stop
Why go to the shops when they can come to you 18/9 - 21/9
So going back a step to our train booking in Zanzibar. We had no idea how difficult it would be to organize transport from Dar es Salaam. There’s only one official train representative on the island and he said the train was booked up (or at least the Zanzibar allocation was). When we went to Africa House for a drink, we saw that there was a travel agent that worked for them and when we asked at reception, they called him and he whizzed on over in his car for some after hours business. At first he tried to organize some flights for us but they ended up costing about $350 each (which he said was a great price). Then he rang his “contact’ in Dar who was able to secure us some train tickets. After much negotiating, we agreed on a price, paid our deposit and were promised that we would be in a carriage together in first class. This was important as normally men and women travel in separate carriages.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn (well about 5.30) to get a taxi to our Ferry over to Dar. Having
lived through our stomach churning journey from Pangani, we were seasoned sea-farers and despite many people being the worst for wear, we got to Dar in one piece. We went straight to the office of our train dude, just beside the port. The first thing he did was to pull out a huge map and say ….”well unfortunately ….. “ Apparently we weren’t actually booked on at all, we wouldn’t be travelling together and we would have to travel third class for the first 5 to 7 hours of the trip (it was due to be a 40 hour journey). He pointed out the place on the map where we would upgrade to our sleeper cabin and wanted us to pay the balance of the money straight away before sending us with his “sister” to the train station. After lots of heated discussion though, it was agreed that we would pay the money at the station once we had tickets in our hands. There was another round of negotiations at the station before we finally got our tickets and prepared to wait for the one o clock boarding time. Having being forewarned about the train’s tardy reputation, we were pleasantly
surprised that the train was only an hour later than scheduled. We settled ourselves in the fairly raucous seated part of the second class section (we were upgraded from 3rd!) and got talking to a very nice young English man called James - the only other gringo on the carriage. After a few minutes chatting, we realised that he was one of our Med School revelers from Peponi’s. We had a good laugh hearing about their sore heads the day after their skinny dipping episode and he told us all about their placements in hospitals all over Tanzania. We managed to move into our first class cabin after about 8 hours on the road. Not before visiting the dining cart for the first time - actually not bad at all - a plate of Wali and Kuku (rice and Chicken) was only about $3 and they even had a bar onboard. The view was the best bit though - chugging through the African bush, waving at local kids as we slowed down through towns and spotting wildlife (we went through a national park so lots of zebra and giraffe).
Matt and I spent the first night in separate cabins
Local Kids
Mostly very cute but some with interesting phrases such as \"give me MY MONEY\" said with much conviction and also \"Give me my booku Englishi\" because of the male/female segregation. There was only one other lady in my carriage though and she got off the train in the middle of the night so I had the place to myself. Matt’s cabin was full and he met a lovely Zambian guy called Andrew who gave him lots of info about Zambia and was so helpful. Because the train was gradually getting emptier as we went along, the conductor agreed to let me and Matt share a cabin on the second night and James managed to upgrade and share the cabin with us (he was supposed to be in sitting 2nd class all the way but was very glad to get a bed! So, the hours passed and we very gradually made our way across the whole of Tanzania and then south through Zambia. The train was supposed to be 40 hours but when we were on the 48th hour and still nowhere near our destination, we decided that beers and cards would distract us and so we got through lots of both. We finally arrived at 10pm on Sunday night - 56 hours after leaving Dar es Salaam. It was like seeing land for the first
time after many months at sea - we were ecstatic to have finally arrived at Kapiri Mposhi. Even better, our new Zambian friend Andrew offered to take us in his 4x4 to Lusaka which was another 3 hours away. He was so lovely, he took the 3 of us and all of our bags as well as him and his driver and what we didn’t realize until we were on the road - his brother and a friend were in the boot! They were hidden behind all the bags and the poor things were all squished up but kept saying they were fine when we checked with them. Andrew drove us to a hostel in Lusaka and came in to check it was alright and when he noticed our light wasn’t working, he even changed the lightbulb for us!! The biggest legend ever :o) we had a quick sleep and then off to the bus station for a 7 hour bus trip to Lusaka. We chose the luxury bus which was about $20 and was the most comfortable bus we’d been on (it's called the Family bus and is a great big blue bus). We even got a movie and
refreshments…very posh.
So, 1 taxi, 1 ferry, a 56 hour train journey, 3 hours in a car and a 7 hour trip on the luxury bus and we eventually made it to Livingston for our Vic falls adventure….phewww
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Hodge
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Your Boyfriend is a chump
Guys the trip sounds awesome, I need some advice when you get back. We heard from a south african friend at the weekend that it was possible to cross the Zambia-Zim border to see the falls from the other side for $25... if you can find out how that would rock, especially as Zim is so messed up at th moment. Also if you have any ideas about accoimdation I need to book something pretty soon (with airport pick up??) for xmas time. Oh and when were you getting back to the UK again?? I aint getting on no plane....