Did I write about the worste bustrip, when I was speaking about 14 hours? Well I can tell you, that was nothing compared to the bustrip between Western and Eastern Tanzania.
Ok, I was in Kabale (Uganda) and wanted to go back to Mombasa (Kenya). I could have chosen the easy way what would have ment taking the bus from:
Kabale - Kampala - Nairobi - Mombasa
but hey, I already did this trip, just the other way around. Now I would really love to travel right across Tanzania. Now there are different options I have:
Kabale - Masaka: Bus
Masaka - Bukoba: Bus
Bukoba - Mwanza: Night Ferry
Mwanza - Dodoma: Train
Dodoma - DAR: Bus
Kabale - Masaka: Bus
Masaka - Bukoba: Bus
Bukoba - Mwanza: Night Ferry
Mwanza - DAR: Bus
Kabale - Masaka: Bus
Masaka - Bukoba: Bus
Bukoba - DAR: Bus
I would have loved to do a boat trip on Lake Victoria but a Night Ferry? Why? Specially if I risk to get seasick and the ticket is rather expensive too. As I also had heard that the train can be dangerous for tourists, I decided to go by bus.
Kabale - Masaka went pretty easy, except that the seats were really not large enough. Specially when you have one of these real african Mama's sitting next to you.
Masaka - Bukoba, wai, it was getting late and for some reason I was taken of the bus and putten into a taxi. I mean taxi driving in Africa is a little different then what we are used to in Europe, but this one. We were 8 adults and 2 children in the car. In Cameroon the max I saw was 11 but here, this was different. We were 2 persons in the front on the passenger seat but the driver was also sharing his seat with an adult. Crazy. Well it was getting dark and I started to worry. I would somehow have to get to Bukoba before the following day because I wanted to take the bus there on Friday morning.
As I arrived at the border it was already dark and I was worried that immigration would be closed. But everything went fine until it came to getting a transport to Bukoba. There was a taxi but he wanted to charge 50'000 TSh, that is far too much. The 1st shared taxis would leave Mutukula (border) only at around 7am, what would be too late to catch the bus in Bukoba. As I didn't want to spend the night outside I agreed on 40'000 TSh, I think that was still too much but at that moment I didn't feel like arguing. The other thing is that in Tanzania the english skills of the locals are rather limited.
The ride to Bukoba was very scary. The driver had some problems with his car so he started turning off the motor and the lights while we were driving. And hey, here we are in Africa, it's not like there would be any lights along the streets. At that time I was really worried.
By Kiroyera Tours (www.kiroyeratours.com) I was told that "Mohamed Trans" would be the best company to travel to DAR with. I arrived there on Thursday evening at around 9pm and they told me that the buses were fully booked until Sunday. But the manager on duty was so nice to organise me a ticket for "Air Buffalo Coach". The person in charge there was so nice to also bring me to a cheap hotel just around the corner of the bus stop. As we were leaving at 6am I had to get up at 4.45am. For some reason I was so stupid to start watching some television and reading in my book.
After a short night I got up at 4.45, showered and headed over to the busstop. The guys asked me if I had paid for my luggage, yeah right, you won't get me. As there was no space for the luggage, they just put it into the bus, where during the trip everybody would just stand on it (no, my nice bag :-() "Mohamed Trans" would normally leave at 6am and arrive at 2 or 3 am the following morning. "Air Buffalo Coach" leaves at 6am and should arrive the following day at around 10am. That was the plan but: "Welcome to Africa".
For this time, instead of 28 hours, just make it 50 hours. Before I forget, this is not a normal bustrip, this bustrip ended being a police case. How this all happened? Let me tell you.
So we left Bukoba a little early, at about 5.45am. The bus was not full at that moment and it was dark and rather cold. Two rows in front of me someone had the window open, I could really not understand the reason for that.
I think we drove about 90 minutes until our 1st stop. We got more people on the bus and I asked the lady if she could close the window. She just shook her head. Now there was some problems coming up because a lady who had booked seat G1 really wanted to sit on that seat, but it was already occupied. The real african drama just started and a lot of the other passengers started commenting on the issue. Well she then had to sit down next to me. I was lucky as she wasn't big, she was not slim but ok, and as she told me she would only go till Dodoma (what actually was not true) I thought I could handel this.
It was still cold and I asked the lady next to me if she could ask them to close the window. Then finally I got the answer to my question, why this couple would not want to close the window.... they couldn't, there was no window there....
We continued and as we stopped and a few persons got off, others came in and took already occupied seats. I knew that these seats were already taken and I told the lady next to me that this would result in big problems again. And exactly that is what happened. As the people came back into the bus an wanted to take their seats an other argument started and people were shouting around. Well apparently the company had sold the seats twice. I felt really sorry for the conductor who probably was not responsible for this problem but hat to deal with these very loud african women.
I was having a lot of fun, until then but I didn't know that this would change.
We passed Singida and arrived in Ikungi at around 7pm. Something was announced and people started shouting again. Apparently the driver wanted to sleep there. In Tanzania buses are allowed to drive until midnight, then they have to stop until 4am. So the passengers weren't happy because apparently we weren't far, only a few hours, from Dodoma and we still had enough time until midnight. Afterwards I was told that there was a problem with the bus. So I got out, nobody actually knew how long this would last until we were informed that we would spend the night there and that the following morning one would go back to Singida to get a spare piece. They would have been able to fix the problem but between Ikungi and Dodoma there was a part of the road which was really bad and if the bus would break down there it could be dangerous for us. Apparently there is a lot of robbery going on and it would be better if we would stay in a small place like Ikungi.
The bus was too full, the seats too small and with the broken window it was also too cold. So I spent the night outside, next to a small gril with some guys from the bus and the men from the grill. One, his name is Shaaban said that he was about 90% sure that we would leave the place the following day. I didn't really understand why we wouldn't leave but he was right, we are in Africa.
We had a long night with plenty of different discussions. People always want to know what the differences are between the African countries I have visited. They also ask me all kind of questions which sometimes I really wonder how I should answer them. It was very cold but somehow me made it through the night.
The sun was coming out and it started to be warmer again. The other passengers got out of the bus, brushed their teeth and washed themselves. I was wondering how long it would take until we would get back on the road. Some tried to get on other buses but for me, with my big bag such a "jump" on another bus would just not have been possible. 9, 10, 11 am, what can take them so long. After the guy came back from Singida it just took them about another 2 hours to get the bus fixed.
You remember the robbery part. Well in the morning a truckdriver arrived. His head covered with blood and his hand in some bandage. Well he got attacked during the night by 10 robbers. Lucky we didn't leave Ikungi.
At 1pm we were ready to leave. Everybody was really tired and as I hadn't slept the entire night, I didn't see a lot of the countryside but fell asleep immediately. It wasn't a real sleeping because one part of the road was really very bad so that I even hit my had at the top ones.
After about 3 hours drive, just before we got to a weight station there was suddenly panic in the bus. I was sitting in the 4th last row and as I turned my head I saw the passengers from the back screaming and climbing over the seats. I had no idea what was going on and as I asked I didn't get an answer. The ones from the back tried to open windows and started jumping out. As I thought it must be something really dangerous, I also jumped out the window. That made the other passengers laugh, the Muzungu (white person) which jumps out. Hell, if someone would have told me that it's just a little smoke, I would have stayed right where I was.
At the weight station (buses and trucks have to get weighted from time to time) there were also two police officers. The passengers got them and said that they wouldn't get back on the bus. We were just about 15km away from Dodoma, the next bigger city. The officer said that we should all get in the bus, then they will weight us and he will see what he can do. We passed but the weight was not accepted as not all the passengers agreed to get back on the bus. After long discussions everybody got on the bus and we finally could get weighted. "We" had decided to drive to Dodoma to the policestation (with the bus), so that we could ask for another bus. On the way to Dodoma a police officer got on our bus. What was talked, I have no idea. We arrived at the police station and some of the people went inside. After about 1 hour a lady came out and announced something. Still not fluent in Kiswaheli ;-) I didn't understand but from the expressions on the faces I could guess. The lady, actually the OCD from Dodoma Police Station had organised us another bus "Champion". They were supposed to bring us to DAR. The "Air Buffalo Coach" would stay at the police station until that company paid "Champion" for taking us over. Everybody was so happy and just about 40 minutes later the new bus came. This one was even tighter but hey, we got a "new" bus. We took off and after 10 minutes we already stopped. Well "Champion" wanted to earn some more money and had, in this very short period of time, informed some other people which wanted to travel to DAR. Well the bus was full again and we finally could leave. It was about 7pm.
At 11.45pm we stopped and I spent the entire night in the bus. Well entire night, we took off at about 4.45am and arrived in DAR at 8.30am.
The thing I really wonder about, how did Joe, my travel buddy from the US now that the bustrip will take 2 days instead of 1 and that the bus will break down????
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| African Bustrip: Bukoba - DAR (TAN) |
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