Distance: 800km
SA Recommends: Take the train if possible
10.12.12 22:45 GMT+3
Our arrival to Mbeya was quite interesting. We were only planning on staying there one night before taking the train, so we didn't really do any research on the place. We didn't even have a name of a hostel/lodge in mind. We only found out on the bus to Mbeya, that it is actually a huge city, which made us kind of nervous, we were expecting a small town where everyone knows the few backpacker lodges the town has to offer by name and where you can walk all the distances. Turns out it's a city of 2 million people, where no one speaks English.
Luckily there was a really friendly local guy Issa in the bus, who spoke a few words of English and took us to a bead and breakfast and functioned as our interpreter since the owner didn't seem to speak English one bit. The cool thing about our new Tanzanian friend was that he didn't seem to be in it for the money like 90% of the helpful Samaritans you meet in Africa. We even shared a meal with Issa afterwards and even though our communication wasn't working seamlessly, he turned out to be really good hearted person.
The place where we ended up is also quite interesting. It is the only hostel we've been to so far, where there are no tourists whatsoever, only locals (excluding us). It wasn't very glorious, but it was cheap and there was a bed so it qualified for us.
Knowing how "well" the Malawian public transportation network works, we were expecting to spend at least two days on the trip from Nkhata Bay to the border and from the border to Mbeya, instead we arrived there on the Monday evening already. Our original plan was to catch a train from Mbeya to Dar on Wednesday but since we were so much ahead of our schedule, we decided rather to try our luck with the bus. We heard that the train might take two days to reach Dar and the bus should only take 12 hours so we might save a couple of days by taking the bus.
12.12.12 23:30 GMT+3
I've sat about 8000km in African buses during this trip so far, so I thought I had seen it all. Another 800km in a Tanzanian bus should be a piece of cake...
Or so we thought. Well, it was our last bus ride on this journey so I guess it would've been kind of boring if it hadn't turned out as infernal and unforgettable as it did.
If we thought the bus ride from Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay was a pain in the ass, we knew even less than nothing.
The bus was supposed to leave at 11:00 yet the bus was nowhere to be seen. Even the guy selling the tickets seemed kind of jumpy, since he wasn't able to get through to the drivers cell phone. Half an hour later the bus arrived and we rushed into the bus. Even though the bus was already 30 minutes late, the driver decided to wait for more customers, hour and a half later we finally left the station. Well, it was kind of a tradition in these African buses, that we had already eaten all our food and drank hald our water before the bus started to move, kind of like how in movies you always eat all the popcorns during the previews.
According to the schedule the bus was supposed to arrive to Dar Es Salaam around 23:00, but we knew that African buses tend to be few hours late, so we weren't really worried... Until around 17 o'clock (the supposed half way point) we saw a road sign saying "Dar Es Salaam 507km". We made a bet about when we would arrive in Dar Es Salaam. Our legs and backs were extremely sore because of the seats and nonexistent leg room. I jokingly suggested we wouldn't arrive until five in the morning, turns out, I missed by three hours.
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| Dar, Finally |
Next Destination: Zanzibar, Tanzania
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