Week 25: To Kigoma: the road not pedalled

September 16, 2015

"We didn't even get to Idaho Falls today" Patrick says. We've been 9 hours on the bus for 300kms from Nyakanazi to Kigoma. Not even the distance back home to Idaho Falls in 3 times the amount of time.

There are many other types of experiences besides just cycling on a long tour. One way of experiencing local life is taking an African bus. There are no ticket offices, there is no list of different companies, the efficiency is lacking to our western eyes. A closer look, you begin to see that there is some sort of order to the chaos.

At 8am we are ready and waiting at the bus stop, just in front of our guesthouse. This is a lesson in patience, after all this is Africa. One by one the buses start to arrive, sometimes with great fanfare with the horn honking nonstop and a guy hanging out the door shouting. Street vendors swarm the bus to sell items through the window to the passengers who are not allowed off...basins filled with variety of cookies and drinks, honey, bananas, peanuts, meat kabobs, pineapple slices.

One by one buses from other bus lines arrive but not ours, Adventure Connection. It's past 8:30am, then past 9am. We hear discussion with the words Adventure connection and Muzungu...finally figuring out that our bus has been detained by police for some reason, but not to worry (hakuna matata)..the bus will arrive. Each bus stopping is fully loaded, yet more passengers get on the bus. When ours finally arrives, ours too is fully loaded.

Then there is the flurry of keeping track that the 8 pannier bags, 3 dry bags and bikes are actually loaded. Patrick does a great job of getting our stuff all on the bus. It seems strange that in 1994 all this would probably have been stacked on the roof of the bus rather than in the luggage compartments. The two muzungus take the last two seats in the back of the bus. There is very little leg room, the window doesn't open and Patrick spends his time killing mosquitos.

About an hour and half later and 20kms down the road, the bus stops, people get off and run for the bushes...it's a pit stop. Then another hour or so later, we stop at a place that is the lunch stop. The driver is under the bus banging away trying to fix something. Back on the bus, there is a new sound every time the driver shifts...sounds like the faint shriek like the woman tennis player that would yell when she hit the ball.

We arrive at 630pm just as the sun is setting and it gets dark quickly. Our gear is dusty, Rachel's bike fender is bent making it difficult for the front wheel to turn. We make our way out of the bus station to a guesthouse nearby...it's full, across the street are two other guesthouses. The next one is also full...the last one we check, we get the last room.

It's been a long torturous day, but then if we had cycled it would have been 5 days of not much joy and little reward.

A lesson in African patience we wait for our Adventure Connection bus, while street vendors try to sell their goods to the passengers.

This gentleman also waiting for a bus to Kigoma, is a language teacher of english and french. He is very helpful to us in figuring out what is going on with the bus.

Just when you think the bus is full, more passengers get on the bus.

Along with more people, more stuff goes into the luggage compartments. Patrick gets off to check on the bikes.

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