A True Budget Safari
Day 263
Up at 6am for the 7am bus to Dar es Salaam it felt like all we’ve done in the last while is full day bus trips. I think its starting to wear on us, travel all day to yet another crappy African city and yet another terrible hotel room. We were looking forward to Tanzania, beaches on Zanzibar and getting out on a safari in the Serengetti, this was the Africa we came looking for. Finally there would be something to see at the end of a long days bus journey. Although not really today, I’m not sure you could count Dar as one of the highlights of Africa.
We rode with the oddly named Scandinavian Bus company, with the comforting slogan of “In God We Trust”. God forbid their slogan would have anything to do with the quality of service or their reliability. Regardless god did bless this bus with decent seats and the rare African practise of assigned seating. Which in theory meant no standing passengers, a notice at the station also stated no farm animals. It all sounded good and as we boarded the bus it seemed pretty good as we pulled out of Mbeya for the 10 hour trip to Dar.
The morning was mostly cool but as we left the beauty of the lush green mountains the heat began to build. Mid-day we stopped for lunch at a busy reststop. There was a service centre, mosque, restaurant and washrooms. Everything you need to break up a long journey. Jordana and I have been on the road long enough that our fear of eating at places such as these is long gone. Unless there is a salad that has cheese and pineapple. I stood at the window to order trying to figure out what to order. There is no menu so I just pointed at the other peoples dishes and asked for one without meat, fish is fine just no meat please. I was handed a stainless steel thali dish with some spinach, vegetable curry, chilli, and a pile of rice in the centre topped by a whole deep fried fish. All this for 1500 Shillings ($1.50 CAD). It was surprisingly very tasty, sure beat a crappy Tim Hortons tuna sandwich at a reststop on the 401.
Back on the bus we had the windows wide open now as we hit the plains and the heat really built up. We had wanted to take the train on this journey but it did not leave Mbeya for another 2 days. We had heard you could see wildlife from the train. “Why do they have speed bumps in the middle of a highway?” I said out loud. “Maybe to slow people down because of animals”. Jordana commented. No more than 10 minutes later we saw impala on the side of the road. Then a giraffe, then 3 more and then a group of elephants. They were just off the highway, no fences, just walking around out here in the wild. It was incredible, the sort of scene you see at some chessy movie about Africa. You know, the ones with the intro of the white people riding a train, looking out at giraffes and elephants. Well I’m here to tell you that its actually like that around here! The bus trip had turned into a cheap safari, the guidebook was right when they stated that Tanzania was the Africa of your childrens storybooks.
We arrived in Dar in darkness, a city always looks worse in darkness and get the impression Dar doesn’t look so nice during the day. We took a taxi to the Safari Inn and checked in. The room was clean, but very basic and they only had fan rooms. I’m not sure I can put into words how hot it was. We both touched the bed, it was hot. Seriously, the bed sheets were warm to the touch. We dropped our bags and went around the corner for a crappy dinner while thunder cracked and a heavy rain fell. “Maybe it will cool off”, I said optimistically.
Back in our room it hadn’t cooled off, in fact it somehow felt hotter. We both took cold showers before bed, but even the cold water was warm. With the ceiling fan on high I lay wet on the bed in hope of cooling off. We were both so tired from the days of travel that we were sleeping before we knew it. I went to bed thinking if every African bus trip was like today then it would a pleasure to ride 10 hours a day.
Tags: Africa, Mbeya, safari, Tanzania, Zambia
Michael Coroneos
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.