Then we get on the bus, and we find out that everyone else’s tickets have numbers but ours do not, but Billy was able to get the resolved pretty quickly so no problem there. As we begin to travel out of town, the door of the bus is still open and there are people jumping on and off while the bus is still moving, which is very different than any charter bus experiences I have had in the US, but still nothing too crazy. So we finally made it out of Nairobi around 10:30pm. Most of the roads we traveled down were unpaved, and our bus driver was maneuvering this huge bus around pot holes, ditches, and rock piles like he was on a little motobike. He drove crazy fast, swerving, but it was actually pretty skillful and amazing to watch. So we went on like that for the next 10 hours or so. Had two bathroom breaks, one of which was a huge cultural experience in itself. At about 7:30am, we woke to the bus stopped in the middle of the road, and every African person on the bus getting off, and the 11 white people looking at each other trying to figure out what was going on. Kelly asked one of the men as he walked by us and he informed her that the bus was too heavy for the road…. Didn’t really know what that meant. Come to find out that the bridge we are supposed to be crossing has collapsed on one side. Seeing as they couldn’t cross, some trucks early had tried to go off-roading and go around the bridge and gotten stuck. Therefore, out of the 2 possible ways to cross, one was blocked and one was collapsing. What did our bus driver do? Took off his button up shirt so that just his undershirt was on, light a cigarette, pop in a music video dvd and come and sit in the back of the bus with us. Kelly decided to ask him what we do now and he said, “We wait�. Well, praise the Lord we only ended up being there about an hour and half and then a tractor showed up and help pull the truck that was stuck out and we were able to go around the bridge. We did end up picking quite a few extra people up while we were stuck, including 3 armed military men with very large guns, who sat in the seat next team me laughing as I went in and out of sleep, possibly drooling on myself. Overall I think my first experience on an African bus was pretty successful. I had my own seat on the bus. There were no live animals on the bus. Even without air-conditioning, it wasn’t that hot. For the majority of the ride the aisle was free so I only got hit in the head in the getting on and off the bus process, not the entire ride. And we were only like 2 hours late to our destination. Some people at home might not understand this, but I am praying that the rest of the bus rides we have in Africa are just like that one. Seriously.
6/1/10
In order to get to Mpeketoni Lamu, we took had to take a 12 hour night bus ride. All the past racers I have talked to have all of these horror stories about bus rides in Africa, so I can honestly say I was completely dreading it. I charged my iPod the entire morning before leaving to make sure that even if the rest of the ride sucked, I could get lost in the music and not have to think about it much. We arrived at the bus station, and things were crazy. Different people were picking up our bags trying to squeeze everything under the bus, cars were honking at us because they couldn’t get by with us standing next to the bus, then other buses were coming and trying to squeeze through. But overall, even with the craziness it didn’t seem too bad.
