On the World Race we do some crazy things. We live on 3 dollars a day, we constantly chase after our next adventure whether it is shark diving or mountain climbing, and we quit our jobs and leave our loved ones for 11 months to go be with a bunch of strangers… get the idea? But the one thing that really puts us over the edge on the crazy scale is the way we travel.
Long international flights are one thing, but long international flights followed by hours and hours on a bus and then hours and hours on a train are another. From 16 hour plane rides, to 12 hour bus rides, to 30 hour train rides, we’ve had a lot of interesting experiences. And that’s not even to mention the crazy local transportation we experience, from the many, many taxis and vans we’ve overloaded with racers, to trikes and jeepnees in the Philippines to incredibly scenic bus rides through Tibetan villages in China, to shappa’s and kumvi’s in Africa – we’ve had a lot of highs and lows as we move about the countries we visit. One of the factors that make our travels so interesting is the low budget we have to travel with… it definitely adds to the sketchiness of things.
However, of all the experiences we’ve had in travel thus far, I do not think anything has been sketchier than getting from Swaziland, Africa to Targu Mures, Romania. My team and I got picked up from Nsoko, Swaziland around 5:45 am and were driven to meet up with some other teams that were in Manzini. We all piled into a van and drove for four hours into Johannesburg, South Africa. From there we had a few hours to kill time at the airport and then finally we were boarding our plane to Istanbul, Turkey. We flew for 12 hours through the night and then after a short layover in Istanbul, we hopped on another plane for an hour or two to Bucharest, Romania. Once in Bucharest, we had about a 3 hour wait at the airport for our bus. We all piled in, with barely enough room for all of us and our packs, and were driven to the train station.
We arrived at the train station at 1 pm and waited there for 9 hours. The train station was absolutely freezing… it was basically like being outside but with a roof over our heads. Praise the Lord there was a McDonalds next to the train station with heat, a bathroom and free wii-fii! I don’t know what we would have done without that! At 10 pm, after waiting outside in the snow, ice, and FREEZING temperatures for an hour because the train was supposed to arrive at 9, we finally boarded our train. We filed into our train cabins, miraculously found a way to situate our packs, and passed out for the next 6 hours. At 4 am we woke up, threw our 50 pound packs back on, and stepped off the train. It was still pitch dark outside, and we were all so out of it from exhaustion, travel, and just waking up from our “nap,” we had no clue what we were stepping into – literally. We stepped out of the train and into 2 feet of snow. We hiked over the snow covered tracks, trying not to completely fall over, cuz let me tell you, it is REALLY hard to get back up when you fall down with your pack on, your body completely exhausted, you haven’t eaten, and you’re FREEZING COLD.
We had a two hour wait out there for our next train to arrive. At 4 am, in some random Romanian village in the middle of nowhere called Deda, we trekked through the snow over to the train station. All the lights were off, but praise Jesus the door was unlocked. We couldn’t find a way to turn the lights on, there was no heat, it seriously felt like we were on the set of a horror film, but at least we had a roof over our heads. I turned on my head lamp, some people pulled out their sleeping bags, and many of us snuggled together as close as we could for body heat. Finally the train came and took us to Targu Mures. When we arrived in Targu Mures our contact Zumbor was there to meet us. He asked for 4 people to come with him to get groceries while the rest waited at the train station, again in the freezing, negative temperatures, with our packs. Maggie, two other women from our squad, and I walked several blocks to the grocery store where he gave us 20 minutes to shop for 15 people on a $3 a day budget, in a new country. When we were finished a van picked us up, we loaded it with all our groceries, drove to pick up the rest of the group, and made our way through the snow covered hills of Transylvania to our home for the month. It is absolutely gorgeous here. Freezing, negative temperatures most days. Our house is very drafty, but it is beautiful, has beds, and feels so homey and cozy. Praise God for getting us here safe and sound, the horror film moments just days ago seem like a distant memory now, and what we lack in warmth we make up for in the joy of the Lord!
This video was made by Dusty Dills. He is on my Squad, not my team, so our travel days were slightly different. But for the most part this is accurate, even down to the nasty toilets!
