Mar 11 - Getting to Dar

On Sunday we discovered that the only train bringing us from Zambia to Dar es salaam in Tanzania would be leaving on Tuesday and if missed we would be stuck in Zambia for another week. In order to catch the train, we needed to take an overnight bus to a city called Lusaka where we would catch a second bus to a town called Kapiri Mopshi which is where the train would depart from.

Bus #1 – scheduled duration: 6 hours (8:30 pm – 2:30 am)

Normally we wouldn’t plan to arrive in any African city in the middle of the night but we were told that we could wait on the bus until our next one arrived. The bus left Livingstone on time but broke down in the middle of nowhere. We were stuck on a packed, hot bus with deafening Swahili hip hop playing all night. We arrived in Lusaka at 3:30am and were kicked off the bus at 5:30. As soon as we walked off the bus, we were swarmed by people offering taxi rides, prepaid cell phone plans and tours. To make matters worse,we didn’t have enough Kwacha (Zambian currency) to buy the next ticket but after a bit of bargaining we worked it out.

Bus #2 – scheduled duration: 2.5 hours (6:30 am – 9 am)

Not much to say, the bus was actually comfortable and we arrived on time although again, loud music blasting the entire way.

Train – scheduled duration: 41 hours (actual duration 48 hours)

Not sure where to start with this one. We arrived at the bus station and met another couple from Canada who we decided to split a first class, 4-bed compartment with. First class appeared to be the equivalent of a 3 star Cuban hotel; more like third class but at least we had our own space. The train was loud, bumpy and hot. We would stop at small villages while they unloaded cargo and people and sometimes we had unscheduled stops for mechanical repairs. Every village we stopped at, kids would run up to the train with huge smiles just wanting to wave hello and to collect our empty water bottles. Women carrying baskets of fruit on their heads would walk by the train and sell us bananas and mangos. I asked a woman with a bucket of avocados how much 1 would cost and she signalled 2 with her figures. By this time we were in Tanzania so I figured she meant 2,000 Tanzanian Shillings (CDN $1.25). I showed her a $5,000 dollar bill and told her I wanted 4 avocados for it. This caused a bit of a commotion as she ran away and came back waving some other bills in her hand as though she wanted to give me change. She then proceeded to empty her entire bucket of about 40 avocados into a giant plastic bag and was jumping up at the window trying to hand it to me. I realized that she must have meant 200 shillings and not 2,000. As I tried to explain to her that I only wanted 4 avocados the train started moving. This type of scene would happen at every village we stopped in.

About 4 hours before arriving to Dares Salaam, we passed through a game park which was a scene straight out of National Geographic.  We would pass through herds of Impala, Giraffe, Zebras, Elephants and various other animals including a giant iguana and a bird so big that I’m pretty sure it is a surviving dinosaur that has not been discovered yet. The whole thing was surreal, herds of giraffe, zebra, impala and baboons were just chilling and mingling together like they were at cocktailparty.

We finally arrived in Dar es Salaam, got checked into a hotel, had a delicious Indian dinner and fell victim to an attempted pickpocketing scam. Fortunately I am Jacob and was able to thwart their little scheme…suckers.