Oh to travel on the World Race! If you think a 13-hour
flight with airplane food, cranky flight attendants, and a ridiculously tiny
lavatory is non-ideal, I would like to introduce you to a new style of travel
that might change your mind…
So at 7pm on Friday July 1st, “S” squad set out
from Junja, Uganda to our respective contacts in Tanzania. Six teams were
picked up around 4pm (3 hours late), and then at 7 pm, my team and two others
loaded up. Since we have such big packs, a bunch of them had to be put inside
the aisleways at the front of the bus. I was sitting behind the driver, so my
foot room was now honorary baggage space (Hey, at lest I had a foot rest!). A
few hours in to our ride, we stopped at the Kenyan border where they tried to
force us each to buy new $50 visas even though we were just passing through and
already had visas that worked from the month before (luckily we won! Thanks
Cody McCullah). We had to walk across the border and wait outside in the dark
for about an hour where all kinds of people harassed us. I always feel bad
being mean to people, but finally one of our guys that’s like 6 foot 7 had to
get tough with them. Finally, our bus passed its check and came through. Twelve
hours later, we arrived in Nairobi (after a “good” nights sleep on potholed
African roads) to switch buses.
Saturday, July 2nd we loaded up on our next bus.
Let me just say that the Greyhound is lookin pretty good right about now. We
rode for several hours and I realized that Africans must have stellar bladders.
Every time we stopped to let someone off, I would run out of the bus to try and
go to the bathroom (much to the dismay of the driver) just in case we wouldn’t
be stopping for a while. One of the two designated bathroom stop on the 16 hour
bus ride was along the side of the road where everyone got out and scouted out
their own bush. The next one was at a small rest stop, where we discovered our
other 6 teams whose bus had broken down (they were forced to sleep on the floor
of a buffet “restaurant,” outside in their tents, or on the bus seats).
Finally at about midnight, after missing our stop in Dar Es
Salaam, Tanzania, we were 30 minutes away from our contact who was picking us
up for the night. When the kind pastor finally arrived to get us, he had a City
Car bus thing in which we loaded up all our stuff and sat on top of one
another. Another 45 minutes later, we arrived at the house where one of our
teams is staying for the months and where we were welcomed to stay for the
night. We couldn’t get our bus tickets for Mbeya City until the morning and
they had to be purchased 24 hours prior to travel, so we would have a day of
waiting. Exhausted, we hauled our bags inside the small house, and 20 or so of
us pulled our sleeping pads out to sleep on the floor.
The morning of Sunday, July 3rd, I woke up
feeling sick with a strange rash on my chest that was incredibly itchy and
uncomfortable. We hadn’t showered in days, and there was no water for us to use
(or even flush the toilet with- imagine not flushing the toilet when 20 people
are using it…). The electricity was out as well. We had hardly eaten anything
in the past few days because the bus hardly ever stopped for food. We had a few
remnants of smooshed sliced bread and some sticky pb and jelly. Most of us had
run out of water and we hadn’t had an opportunity to get any Tanzania
shillings, so we couldn’t even go buy any snacks or water at a local “tienda.”
We were actually kind of in the middle of nowhere and just had to wait until
the pastor came back to do anything.
Finally in the late afternoon, the pastor came, bringing two
of the other teams with him. They had had quite the night. Somehow, they
brought new energy with them though and rallied a bunch of us to figure out a
way to get to the beach. We found really cheap transportation as we were making
our way to the road and 20 minutes later we were at the beach. I will say that
my main reason for my going was that I need some sort of a shower and the ocean
was lookin pretty good J We all ran in with our soap and shampoo and it was
sheer heaven. All the craziness of travel was suddenly worth it and I had never
felt so grateful. All I could do was praise God and enjoy. The beach wasn’t
nice or anything (actually the water was pretty gross), but it didn’t matter.
After swimming for a bit we walked down the beach and found
a place to get some food. It was kind of fun to hear them pumping American
tunes. We even got to use their bathroom and take somewhat of a second shower
(using the sink), since it ends up the ocean likes to leave you with plenty of
unwanted sand.
On the way back to the house, our drivers got very lost and
it took about an hour. While we were gone though, our team leaders had been
taken to purchase bus tickets and another group was taken to get some
groceries. We had spaghetti and enjoyed the company of our squad-mates. The
neighbors even opened up a part of their house for the 15 new arrivals to
sleep.
At 4 a.m. on Monday, July 4th, all 5 teams packed
up and headed to the bus station. It was absolutely crazy! There were so many
buses and people hustling to leave, it was hard not to get knocked over- plus
the fact that it was still dark outside. Luckily my team was the first to get
settled on our bus. Somehow this bus ride seemed to go by faster. Maybe its
because we had become pro’s by then. We drove through two national wildlife
preserves, which was awesome. Cody said it was like a “speed safari.” We passed
by giraffes, zebras, impalas, baboons, and other monkeys.
Finally after a 12 hour ride, we arrived in Mbeya City. When
we got off our bus, we didn’t know who our contact was and random people kept
trying to talk to us. We didn’t want to be rude, but we didn’t know if they
were the people we were meeting or if they were scamming us. Finally we met our
pastor and some church members, though it was hard to understand them at first
because most were speaking in very broken English. Before we could leave
though, people from the bus company came over and tried to cheat us by making
us pay some kind of fee for our bags. No one else had had to pay, but this was
as we call it, the “mzungu welcome.” After trying to fight our way out of it,
we gave up and just paid part of it (awkward first impression on our contact
I’m sure…).
Anyways, finally we were safe and sound in Mbeya. It only
took from 7p.m. on July 1st to 7 p.m. on July 4th.
As crazy as all the shenanigans were, my travel from Uganda
to Tanzania is actually a pretty funny memory. I mean, this is the kind of
stuff I expected when I signed up for the World Race! Don’t get me wrong, I was
pretty miserable at several points during travel- but it kind of made the
simple things sweeter. Like the ocean, or a shower, or bottled water. It was
definitely an experience I will never forget and an adventure that helped me to
be so much more grateful for many things in life that at times I still take for
granted…
