I hadn't done too much research on the route, I never do, so wasn't sure how it was going to pan out. To plan an overland trip through Africa the one thing you don't need a lot of is planning mainly because gathering information on far off destinations, those being anything more than 100 miles from your current location, are difficult if not impossible to come by. So while living in northeastern Tanzania and trying to get the bus schedule for southern Tanzania, much less the neighboring country, is like trying to get a politician to give you a straight answer on a sex scandal. What it does take is an ample amount of patience mixed with three-parts flexibility and an unimaginable amount of time.
From prior experience I knew an overland trip anywhere on the continent via public transport would be terribly trying but was hoping the payoffs would make up for it. I took a big risk from the start by taking the Tanzanian train system to its southern border. The train is notorious for being late. When purchasing your ticket, you are told to expect a 24 - 36 hour delay. In my case, I was at least starting at the beginning of the line so if there was a delay I would have an uncomfortable, rusty, most likely hot and humid sleeper cabin to rest in instead of having to wait it out at some train station platform along the route with swarms of flying cockroaches. Miraculously, maybe due to the fact that I had just worked with street children for the past 6 months, the gods were on my side and the train dropped me at my destination one hour ahead of schedule after a bumpy yet enjoyable overnight ride. My gamble paid off and it made a good start to the trip but the fun was quickly over as it seemed the greedy gods were done with their repayment.
After departing the train somewhere near the Malawi border in the early afternoon, I was hustled onto one bus that said they were going all the way to the border. When this bus stopped short, I was hustled onto another bus that said they were going all they way to the border. When this bus stopped short, I was told I needed to take a motorcycle the rest of the way. Finally I arrived at the Malawi border and crossed over without issue before being hustled into another bus for the three hour ride to my final destination of the day since night had fallen. Busses do travel at night but due to poor road conditions, unsafe vehicles and even more unsafe drivers, I made a rule for myself that I would only travel during the day to decrease my chances of being the only foreigner killed in a small bus in a country no one cares about in an article that was never written for the local non-newspaper.
Now, getting dropped in the center of an unfamiliar town and unsure of where I was going to stay, I hopped on the back of a local "bicycle taxi" who pedaled myself and large backpack to a nearby hotel of his recommendation. It was late so I ate whatever food the hotel could muster up before crashing on the bed and waking up the next morning at 3:30 am to catch the 4 am bus. After another full day on the bus, I ended up at a town nestled amongst the hills and shoreline of Lake Malawi where I could relax and look forward to the gentle boat ride down the lake.
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| 'Bicycle taxi' drivers wait for customers outside the bus station with a padded seat on the back for your comfort. |
As I got settled into a cozy hotel overlooking the lake, I began my inquiry as to the particulars of the ferry schedule. This is when the realities of African travel can make a grown-ass man cry. The ferry had been out of commission for months but had recently been fixed and was on the water just last week only to break down immediately and put ashore with no further work on it in its future. With no other options to proceed lazily down the lake or even fly out if I wanted to, I was stuck taking busses all the way into Mozambique.
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| This is what Lake Malawi looks like from the shore with Tanzania barely visible on the other side. I'm not sure what it looked like from the water because the only boat available was out of commission. |
The least to say I was a bit dissatisfied with the overland trip so far and even though the beach didn't exactly make up for it, it helped me quickly forget the last few days. Once into Mozambique and on the coast I learned that there is no way to get from Mozambique to Madagascar by land (obviously), sea, or air. Your only option is to fly and the closest places to fly from were Johannesburg, South Africa or back up to Nairobi, Kenya. Well I wasn't heading back north and calling it quits so pressing on to Jo'burg was my only option and I wasn't too excited about it because that meant more bus rides and going through one of the most crime ridden cities in southern Africa. But alas what was one to do. Seems like my sea faring days were over.
I will say that the coast of Mozambique is absolutely stunning. Crystal blue water with great sea-life immersed between giant golden sand dunes from which the sails of local fishing boats look like toys gliding across the sea below, however, if I were going to write a travel book for Malawi and Mozambique it would be pretty short and say "Don't go." Malawi has a great lake but without the ferry there is no way to really enjoy it. Mozambique has some amazing beaches but the prices are out of control. It's priced as an expensive European country but standards are still very African meaning really sh@tty.
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| Paths of footprints track the few intrepid travelers who make it to the top of the giant sand dune. |
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| Local fish |
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| Local fisherman |
Sad to say, except for a few days on a breathtaking beach on the Mozambique coast, the 2000 plus miles it took me to get from Moshi, Tanzania to Johannesburg, South Africa by bus were fairly anti-climatic. However, as my last major jaunt through Africa, I felt traveling across the continent deserved at least one solid write up in my blog to give it due credence. Traveling through this continent has been the adventure for many a traveler from the famed Livingston and Stanley to current day overlanders driving their Land Rovers from Cairo to Cape Town, bicyclists pedaling their way around for a cause, or backpackers trekking down the coast with nothing better to do. It is truly one of the last places in the world where guidebooks, maps, information from someone who was there yesterday, can be thrown out the window. Each will have a different narrative but all around the same theme. I've done it twice and never want to do it again. I think I said that last time. I figured this was a good time to share of that experience and decided the best way to convey this message was to use a trip I made in 2004 as the base for my tale while incorporating other trials and tribulations that have occurred to me on the continent that didn't necessarily happen on that trip but happened at some point none the less.
The route: Go overland from Moshi, Tanzania to Kigali, Rwanda to view the mountain gorillas in Volcans National Park. The maps I looked at had roads making that connection however I could gather no information online, in books, or through people whether the border was actually accessible and if I could cross there. So without too much information on the route, I went forward with the plan.
The only road linking eastern Tanzania to the north cuts directly through Serengeti National Park. Busses don't like to take this route because they would have to pay a huge fee to access the park and it would take a full day of driving on a bumpy gravel road to get there. So they head east into Kenya via the highway before cutting back west to enter northern Tanzania.
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| Over 1000 miles by bus from Moshi, Tanzania to Kigali, Rwanda via Nairobi, Kenya. Just because there is a road doesn't mean there is a way. |
Advice on choosing a bus line: If a bus line advertises that it has a toilet, tv, or air conditioning, look for one that doesn't. If they have a toilet, this means they don't stop along the way for breaks and the onboard toilet is usually out of order or it looks like a group of people squeezed into the tiny closet size room that serves as the toilet. Since it was too crowded for any one of them to sit on the seat they just relieved themselves on anything but the toilet. If there is a tv, the movie will be either Rambo 1, Rambo 2, Rambo 3, or anything with Jean-Claude Van Damme. It will play about two-thirds of the way through then the DVD will get stuck and they will start it over. This repeats until the conclusion of your journey. The volume will be set so high that the duct tape and aluminum foil holding the speakers together of the 'entertainment system' produce a noise that SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life) satellites would have a hard time descrambling. If there is an a/c, the windows will be locked shut while you are blown with warm air from the vehicles manifold and the outside air temperature of 100 F would be a blessing.
After a full day of traveling, we arrived in Nairobi in the middle of the night which I wasn't too excited about. 'Nai-robbery' is the east African equivalent to Jo'burg down south. As everyone got off to eat a bit, I decided to stick with my luggage in the back of the bus as it took off around the corner so the driver could skip his meal and meet his 'girlfriend'. I tried to catch some sleep in the back while being assaulted by mosquitos.
The next day we crossed back into Tanzania arriving in Mwanza, the capital of the north and Tanzania's second most populous city, in the early evening. I would have to stay the night here and catch the early bus in the morning. There was no worry about accommodation as the locals were more than happy to guide me to a row of tawdry looking guesthouses. I picked the closest one since they all looked the same. The room I was shown was akin to a large concrete jail cell with old yellow paint peeling off the walls plus these added amenities: a broken mirror, a door, a window (broken should be associated with all three, I just didn't feel like writing it three times), a mosquito net with holes big enough for an aardvark to crawl through, and a sunken mattress on a wooden frame resting nimbly on only 3 legs with a complimentary opened condom package (no condom though) on top of the slovenly made sheet. If I was in America, I would have preferred a jail cell but when in Rome...
I threw my backpack on the floor, not to break the bed, and agreed to the $5 rate for the night. I doused the bed in mosquito repellent and let it soak in to get rid of as many bedfellows as possible while I went out to find a bite to eat which consisted of ugali and some indiscernible cow parts. (Ugali is a thick porridge or doughy paste made from maize flour with absolutely zero added flavoring. Yes, it's as good as it sounds, and yes, I like to use sarcasm when I write.) On the return I made my way through the gauntlet of prostitutes that lined the street before entering my hotel to use the shower at the end of the hallway to wash the bus away and cool off before heading to bed. The bathroom included a rusted pipe coming out of the ceiling almost directly over the squatter-style toilet. As one would imagine there was only one nob for water and it wasn't hot. Before drifting off to sleep, I did some light reading on my vaccination sheet to make sure I was current on all my shots, hoping that would help me sleep better.
Getting to Mwanza was the easy part. From here on out, let's just say the journey carried much more of a fluid tone. It was only about 100 miles to the Rwanda border and I was hoping to make it there by evening so I could cross over and be in Kigali for the night but I was unsure of the road conditions or bus schedule. I awoke to the sound of a rooster crowing just outside my window. I checked my watch and it was 10:30 pm, about 10 minutes after I went to sleep. This happened about every 30 minutes until I finally had to get up at 5 am to catch my bus.
As I figured, the bus was not quite the standard of the last bus I was on. It was a converted school bus that somehow made its way in a time machine from America in the 1950's to present day Tanzania. By converted I mean the front cowling was completely gone leaving the motor and other under workings completely exposed. Everything else was the same except for the normal wear and tear one would expect on a school bus that has been hauling locals around in northern Tanzania for over half a century. After telling the doorman my destination for the fifth time without any mild comprehension on his part, I just got onboard unsure of where I was actually going to get dropped but would be happy as long as the bus was heading west. I made my way to the rear and slumped down in on the bench seat next to the window trying to get some sleep before the sun came up. That lasted until the bus departed and my head slammed against the only closed window on the bus (closed because it was the only window with a pane still in place) violently waking me up.
Calling it a road was a stretch of the imagination. It appeared they had used military ordinance to clear the brush and then decided that "Eh, this looks good enough." En route we made multiple stops to ensure that the bus was filled to twice its maximum capacity of passengers making even standing room in the aisle a valued commodity. Stops were also made frequently between destinations allowing the driver to tinker with the motor, check if the bus could make it through newly formed potholes (or chasms), or to refuel on banana beer. The last being for the driver and not a new environmentally friendly fuel for vehicles.
During the bulk of the trip, I was squeezed against the window in a bench seat for two next to another slender gentleman wearing a suit and sweating profusely. A rather large mother seeing two skinny men on one bench seat decided there was ample room for herself and her two children as well. In the aisle was a woman who came prepared and brought a bucket as her own seat. As uncomfortable as this sounds, and it was, I was just happy to have acquired a seat and not stuck standing because I had no idea how long this was gong to take.
As we bounced our way down the dirt road, no one talked as they seemed to want to conserve energy knowing how tiring this trip was going to be. The farther we got from Mwanza the smaller and more primitive the villages became. We stopped often to exchange passengers, usually loading more on than letting off and before the bus came to a halt a mass of hawkers surrounded us selling everything from coke to local eats. The local eats became more and more, let's say, organic until eventually it was just uncooked grasshoppers on a stick. At the first few stops I would peek my head out just to see what was going on and as soon as the kids noticed a white person in the bus, it was immediately swarmed as the kids banged on the bus and began chanting 'mzungu' in unison which means 'white skinned'. As the bus pulled away the kids ran along side with some clambering on without the bus driver giving them a second glance before they were bounced off the bus outside of town. From that point on, I kept myself well hidden at the stops for fear the bus would be ripped apart.
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| The usual stampede of vendors trying to sell anything that might seem appeasing to the weary traveler. |
Once outside, away from the oppressive conditions of the bus where it was suitable for talking, I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me. I hadn't noticed but on the left side of his head was a huge piece of gauze. It was white at one point I assumed, but now was a mucky yellow. He told me he would have to stay here for the night because he was feeling week due to his injury and he then, without my asking, showed me a gaping wound that was underneath the gauze. I concurred that staying was a good idea because he did look pretty faint but more importantly I wasn't exactly sure how to handle someone after they passed out due to their brain leaking from their head. Plus there would be more room on the seat now.
After a total of 8 hours of driving with no border in sight, the bus stopped at a cross roads and I was told to get off and wait here for the next bus. That was as much as I could gather from the pointing and grunting I received from the conductor. After receiving blank stares when trying to ask when the next bus was due, I just got off. It was around one in the afternoon and I had no idea how long I would have to wait or how much longer it was to the border. Side note: I also had no idea where I was. So I picked a shady spot on the dirt underneath a tree in front of the only row of dilapidated wooden shacks around figuring if I was still here when the sun started setting, someone would offer me a place to stay for the night. For entertainment I watched a woman cook corn for the next bus coming through which gave me some hope and watched a man in tattered clothes collect water in a jug from the puddles in the street. I also had these guys to keep me company:
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| During the 2 hours of waiting, I was able to teach them chorus to "The Crossroads" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. |
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| Heaps of corn to cook: The only hopeful sign that a bus was on its way. |
It was crowded but luckily not to double its capacity. I squeezed in next to an old woman dressed in rags who looked fifty'ish but was probably in her late thirties. She was breast feeding what appeared to be her twenty-eighth time because the youngster was attached to the nipple somewhere well below the waist. She looked at me as if to say can you please take over and breast feed for a bit so I can take a break. I politely declined by turning my head and staring vaguely out of the window.
The doorman attached my backpack, I was sure, securely to the roof but didn't have the energy to check myself and jumped down as the van began to take off. Running along side, he finally hoped in and began trying to close the sliding door. After slamming it multiple times and looking at it trying to use some type of jedi-mind trick, he decided continuously slamming it should at some point do the trick and indeed it did. After about the fiftieth slam, the door had given up and decided its best course of action to avoid more abuse was just to give up and let go. It completely came off doing a summersault down the road behind the van leaving a gaping hole in its place. Of course this caused some commotion between the driver and doorman. The rest looked like they had seen this happen hundreds of times before. The driver backed up and everyone got out as the door was 'reinstalled'. Using some wire that was holding the hood down and some rope that was holding about fifteen plastic jugs on the back of the van, which meant they were now placed inside, they tied the door back on leaving a big enough gap for us passengers to get in and out of. We loaded up and were off again.
Further down there was a man with a goat waiting on the side of the road. Due to my naivety, remember this was in 2004 before I had learned that if there is someone willing to pay a driver, he will stop no matter how full to acquire a new passenger or his goat, I thought surely we won't stop to pick them up because there is absolutely zero room inside. I was already trying to look like I was making an effort to make room for the goat inside when one of the guys hoped up onto the roof and two others lifted the goat up to him. After much fumbling around, the man came down with a satisfied grin on his face and I assumed he had successfully tied the goat securely to the roof hopefully with his rear end away from my backpack. I was now thinking that if I would have known live animals could ride on the roof, I would have much preferred a seat up there but I was stuck stuffed inside as we continued our journey.
At times you couldn't help but doze off because of the overbearing heat and shear boredom of the trip however it seemed as if someone had placed holes in the road at just the right increments to insure actually catching any shut-eye for longer than five seconds was an impossibility. At one point everyone was awakened by a slight commotion on the roof. The commotion grew loader and a sound like small ball peen hammers patterned their way slowly towards the rear of the van. Everyone's head was turned up staring at the ceiling with mouths agape following the noise to the back like watching a slow golf putt role across the green. Then the noise stopped as quickly as it started and a flash of white flew past the back window. The goat had jumped. Raucous chatter erupted inside as the driver slammed on the breaks and everyone starred back. The goat had made it to its feet but was just standing there in a daze with dust still hovering around him. I was rooting for the goat and hoping he would come to his senses and take off into the thick shrubs on either side of the road to live a free life with his brethren animals however, once again, expectations were too high and he just stood there. After all it was a goat and realistically he probably would have been viciously killed by another animal in the wild anyway. The goat's proprietor was the first out of the van and quickly had the goat buy its rope leash. He seemed to be giving him a good talking to for doing such a foolish thing. Everyone in the bus was still having fits because this even for them was a new one. Once again the goat was hoisted up and I am assuming either much more securely fastened to the roof or strangled on the roof because I never heard from him again.
Around 4:30 pm, the bus stopped and I was told this was the border. I felt pretty good about my chances of getting across before 5:00 but just saw a row of even more dilapidated shacks than my previous stop with no official border looking thingies in sight. After the bus departed, I was left staring at a group of men who were staring back at me. One came forth who spoke the most English and this meant anything under two syllables. It was obvious any foreigner who had made it this far was trying to get into Rwanda however as I found out the actual border crossing was still apiece down the road. Lucky for me they had a car they could drive me in.
They lead me to a 1988 Acura Legend, which surprisingly had all four tires. At this point, I was just relieved that there was a border I could cross and a way to get there. The man in charge told me it was $20 to the border. Well I had no idea how much farther the border was but was accustomed to bargaining in the region and didn't want to get swindled as the new guy in town so I made a confident counter offer of $10 because $20 seemed ridiculous. My friend came back with $30. I thought this was an odd way of haggling for a price then checked myself as I looked around and realized there were no other cars in sight. I decided the to take him up on the $20 offer.
Of course the guy you haggle with is never the guy who drives and a scrawny teenager ran around and began putting my bags in the back seat before settling into the driver's side. We take off and I am not exactly sure if we can make it but my driver seems to be enthusiastic about driving me around. He looks at me nervously and asks in very broken English, "Do you know this way?" I look back at him with my "Are you serious? It's pretty obvious that this is my first time within a thousand miles of here" look and simply nod my head in the negative. With a big grin on his face he says it is a shortcut like I should be proud that he has thought of this all on his own. He tells me there is only one ferry to cross instead of three. I concurred.
As we are hauling down the gravel road while I am hoping the tires stay on, there is a sudden pop accompanied by a repetitive thumping from the rear tire. My hopes of getting into Rwanda today deflate along with the tire. We stop and pop the trunk to miraculously see a spare tire. It is bald as anything but it is inflated and somehow appears to be holding air. We were at the top of a small hill, which isn't the best place to change a tire but I just wanted this guy to get it done so we could go. He jacked the car, took the lug nuts off the flat tire, and brought the spare out of the trunk.
At this point, locals come of what seemed to be an uninhabited forest to see what is going on with this car and the white guy. He gets the spare out and sets it down behind him while he takes off the flat tire. When he turns around the spare begins to role down the hill out of his reach. Everyone just stares at the tire as it gains speed and careens down the hill straight for a man and his bicycle. The man makes no effort to move or pull his bicycle from the out of control tire's path of destruction. The tire runs straight into his bike taking it into the shallow ditch next to the road. The man looks up at my driver and my driver looks at me like I should have an answer for this.
We go down to get the tire and the man is dramatically claiming that his bike is seriously damaged although the tire hitting it probably knocked most of the dirt off of it cleaning it up a bit. He is demanding money to repair this and that and the crowd is growing in size with about twenty people now gathered around. I am still unsure of where they are coming from. I decide it is best for me to go back up and sit in the car... with the doors locked. As the locals gang up on the driver, who begins sweating profusely, they demand compensation and he has no choice but to pay. I feel sorry for him because I am sure it is a substantial amount of money and he will have to pay even more dearly when he returns to the man-in-charge in his village with a flat tire and less money than he started. I consider whether I should help pay a bit but these feelings only last for about two seconds before I put my head back on the seat and try to catch some sleep until we are ready to move again.
When I woke up we were at a ferry crossing that consisted of a platform just big enough for a small car. Ours was of medium size but they assured us this was no problem. I decided not to stay in the car as they pulled it with a rope hand over hand across the river even though they assured me it was safe to stay inside. I pointed to a couple half submerged cars near the bank after they said this and they responded with impish smirks.
Once across it was a short drive until the actual border was in sight. Actual border meaning official looking buildings with flags and the like surrounded by a shoddy chain link fence interspersed with barbed wire. I went through the Tanzanian side and then lugged my backpack and self towards the bridge that crossed the deep gorge separating Rwanda from Tanzania. Across the bridge, I didn't really see any buildings to go to for entrance into Rwanda. There was just a small one-man tent on the side of the road just passed the bridge with no one inside. I decided to slowly proceed down the road but after ten yards or so past the aforementioned tent there was an irate yelling behind me. I turned around to see a man in fatigues pointing a machine gun in my general direction. Normally I would have wet my pants but after traveling this far in these conditions my senses were a bit dulled and after seeing the rust on the gun and bent shape of the muzzle, I figured he would have a better chance of throwing it at me than shooting.
In the end he gave a quick look at my passport and gave me a stamp for entrance into Rwanda. I could tell he was a bit embarrassed for his overzealous actions due to being caught off guard and bypassed while at post. He tried to make up for it by taking me back to the bridge and pointing out a woman's body caught in an eddy way down below in the river getting gently swirled against the rocks as her bloated body was impossible to recover. Welcome to Rwanda.
Successfully in Rwanda, I just had to catch another small van to Kigali about 4 hours away and then find a hotel. I don't remember much here because it was pitch black outside and I was a bit tired but I do vividly remember a few days later squatting down in the most dense forest I have ever been through surrounded by about twenty-five wild silver back gorillas and that is a great story to tell. And of course, I could have flown from Moshi to Kigali but then I wouldn't have had anything to write about here.
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Bay Jerger circa 1994.
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| Making direct eye contact with the gorillas is a no-no since it may be perceived as a threat. I was hoping this little one, and more importantly, his mother in the background, wouldn't mind for one shot. |
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!
Yeah! If I would write a song about traveling through Africa, the lyrics would be just the opposite. Hope everyone is enjoying their travels through life wherever they may lead.
Cheers,
Jb
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