Quick run down on the last 60 hours or so of my life…
So just to set it up, our squad was planning on travelling by bus from Kampala, Uganda to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and for three teams we travelled past Dar to a place called Mbeya Town. Here is a documented account of this beautiful journey…
Day 1
10:00 am…expected bus arrival
12:00 pm…find out that they are cleaning our bus and then it’s on the way
2:00 pm…still no bus
2:15 pm…tom and I travel into super busy downtown Kampala to try to find and retrieve our bus
2:30 pm…tom and I find out that our bus is getting repairs and it is too busy in town to pick us up from the bus station so we will have to meet the bus at a designated spot along the route it was using to get to our hostel to pick everyone up.
2:45 pm…tom and I board bota-botas bound for our bus rendezvous spot
(ps bota bota’s are motorcycle/moped taxis and we both promised ourselves at the beginning of the month that we wouldn’t EVER take a bota bota in downtown kampala b/c it’s so dangerous with traffic and how they drive and we made it until our very last day in Uganda and realized we had no choice but to go against our better judgment and we along with 2 contacts and the guy from the bus station mounted 5 different bota’s and went biker boys style through the busy streets)
3:00 pm…near head on collision with enormous truck
3:02 pm….cut off car and life flashed before my eyes
3:03 pm….pulled out in front of oncoming traffic
3:05 pm…almost lost my leg trying to get around stopped traffic
3:07 pm…driving on the wrong side of the road
3:07pm…driver realizes we are driving on the wrong side of the road and swerves to miss oncoming truck.
3:09 pm…tom and I get OFF of our bota’s at the rendezvous spot
4:15 pm…the bus arrives to pick everyone up at the hostel
4:17 pm…we quickly learn that it is going to be a task to get 43 people’s bag’s underneath the bus, almost to the point that we aren’t sure if it’s possible but God created some extra space.
4:20 pm…we depart
5:45 pm…after conversing some on the bus I was pleased to see that we were an hour and a half into our journey only to look out of the bus window to see we were actually only maybe 10 minutes outside of kampala due to traffic…YAYY!!!!!!
8:00 pm…the bus pulls over to let everyone use the bathroom and get some food, as we ask for the bathroom people lead us around the building and tell us to just walk up the hill, so the guys just find ample space and the girls huddled behind a random sketchy building in the dark, which we later found out was the bathroom…oh well
11:00 pm…reach the Kenyan border
11:30 pm…document checks and visas are done so we all pile back on the bus and we are off…again
11:35 pm…we all simultaneously realize that the Kenyan roads are not quite as “nice” as the roads in Uganda
11:36 pm…hit a speed bump
11:37 pm…another speed bump
11:38 pm…another speed bump
11:40 pm…big pot hole
11:42 pm…hit an ENORMOUS hole that propelled most of us out of our seats a little bit
(the last 6 minute sequence can just be repeated every 20 minutes for the next 12 hours to keep me from typing it all…almost exactly in that order)
Day 2
2:00 am…wide awake, the bus had stopped because there was an accident blocking the road
7:00 am…riding through some really awesome mountains and got to see an amazing sunrise
8:00 am…still trying to find a comfortable way for a person 6’4″ to ride for multiple hours on a bus
8:05 am…realized that it wasn’t possible
9:00 am…stopped in Nairobi to use the bathroom again and Kyle, Chad and I got “semi-caught” mid pee
trying to go behind a random broken down bus so that was awkward…and painful.
1:00 pm…arrive at the Tanzanian border for document check and visas
1:30 pm…realize that there is a “weight problem” on the bus sooooo everyone sitting in the back of the bus must relocate to the front of the bus until we get past the weighing check point
1:35 pm…we get the green light for weight
1:40 pm…back on the road and the last sign I read stated “speed limit is 50 kph, the roads are very bad for the next 180 kilometers…HOORAYY!!!
1:45 pm…starting to realize that the landscape is drastically different from anywhere else we have been in Africa. It was what I expected Africa to look like with lots of grasslands and desert and mud huts.
2:00 pm…start thinking that every big mountain I see is Kilimanjaro.
2:15 pm…Another weight check so everyone from the back of the bus gets to move to the front again
2:17 pm…GREEN LIGHT!!!! 2 down 5 to go
4:30 pm…in the town of Arusha and Mt. Kilimanjaro gets pointed out to us by our conductor on the bus
7:30 pm…weight check, everyone moves to the front of the bus
7:32 pm…GREEN LIGHT!!!
8:00 pm…trying to get some sleep but the bus driver turns on the overhead lights every 20 minutes for police checks I think and more weight checks
8:30 pm…see a truck through the front window that turns these two enormous lights on and I start to hear a horn beep. Quickly becoming apparent that the truck is in our lane and isn’t moving. At the last second it veers back into its lane and we veer off the road a little bit and miss a sweet head on collision with an 18 wheeler because of debris in the road…Thanks God
8:45 pm…our bus driver who hasn’t slept the whole time either is throwing caution to the wind as we start CRUISING down these twisting African roads
9:00 pm…waiting for the bus to lift off the ground b/c we’ve reached takeoff speed
12:00 am…an hour outside of Dar es Salaam and at our last police/weight check.
12:05 am…GREEN LIGHT!!!
12:06 am…bus drives 10 feet and stops
12:10 am…police driver boards the bus and tells us all “It’s illegal to travel in Tanzania at night so you will have to park the bus here and sleep until the morning” HAHAHA oh if looks could kill I know it couldn’t have helped the situation any but all I could do was erupt into laughter at this point.
12:30 am…after “negotiating” with our bus driver and conductor the bus starts rolling again…Off to Dar
12:35 am…bus driver must have taken the governor off the bus b/c we start going even faster than we were before…kinda reminded me of when they start going on that crazy ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory…hope everyone picked up on that analogy.
2:13 am…we arrived at the hostel in Dar es Salaam so people could finally get some sleep
2:14 am…well that was a lie, some could go to bed but 3 of our teams were leaving to go to our contacts in western Tanzania at 6:00am
2:30 am…boarded back on the bus and drove to the bus station to get tickets and stay until our bus left.
2:50 am…our bus parked and we realized that the “bus station” was actually just a bus park and there would be no where for us to stay until our bus left except out on the streets. Thankfully our bus driver said we could stay on the bus until our new bus left in a few hours.
3:00 am…started up some card games on the bus as other people tried to sleep for a few hours
4:30 am…a contact met us at the bus station as three off us left to go buy our tickets
5:30 am…purchased all the tickets and went back to get our stuff and board two more buses for another 12 hour journey or so…
6:15 am…get on the bus and Tom realizes that his seat is broken and shifts side to side and I realize my seat is broken and won’t stay upright
9:30 am…our bus stops to allow us to use the bathroom on the side of the road and apparently almost gets hit by another vehicle so hits the gas to get out of the way then slams on the brakes… I didn’t get to experience this butttt Rachael, Brittany and Casey did and they all fell out on the floor and got scratched up…side note: Rachael got off the bus and 2 seconds later the bus driver said it was time to go and I thought he was about to leave her but she managed to get back on before he took off.
12:00 pm…start looking outside of the bus to see that there are giraffes, monkeys, buffalos, antelopes, elephants, zebras, and maybe even a few more animals all along the land we were driving through.
2:00 pm…the bus stops for lunch
2:15 pm…the bus driver is ready to leave again and Rachael and Brittany still haven’t made it back on the bus. Kinda start to panic when the bus just starts driving so I try to communicate with the driver to stop and let me out to go get them…not so easily translated I found out. Best part about the story is when I ask him to open the door for me he directs me to the string that pulls the curtains closed. As we are having this wonderful lesson in “translation gone bad” Rachael and Brittany come running up.
5:00 pm…the rest of the ride is pretty uneventful just feels like it’s never going to end and delirium starts to set in.
8:30 pm…ARRIVE IN MBEYA TOWN
Stay tuned for more to come from Tanzania…
