The Tanzara Railway... and then some

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) is the largest single item foreign-aid project ever undertaken by China. Also called Uhuru (kiSwahili for Freedom Railway) and the Tanzam (Tanzania/Zambia) Railway, it runs from the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia. It was built between 1970 and 1975 as a way to give landlocked Zambia an alternative to export routes via white minority ruled Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) or Apartheid South Africa.

Aside from being an interesting piece of history, the train offers passengers (including curious backpackers such as ourselves) a unique way to travel overland from Tanzania to Zambia with the whole trip from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi taking 2 days and spanning 1860 kilometers.

Back in Dar es Salaam from our ‘Crater Christmas’, Holly, Elsa and I board the train in the stifling heat. We find our cabin (thankfully we managed to obtain ‘first class’ tickets – less than 50 dollars each) and wonder how we will endure 2 days of the unbearably hot weather.

Day 1 - Holly before the train starts moving

Day 1 - Elsa and I outside the train in Dar es Salaam

Elsa in our Cabin

We are relived when we manage to pry the windows open and the train starts moving, cooling everything down.

Our Canadian friends from the Zanzibar part of our trip join us for the first 27 hours as they live close one of the Tanzania border stops (on the Malawi side).

The first day is lots of fun. We hang out in the bar car where there are couches and beer. After 24 hours, we stop at Mbeya to bid farewell to our friends. Not only is the train running 3 hours ahead of time, but the ride has been quite smooth. (We had heard horror stories from a nurse who recounted re-attaching a man’s finger after having it partially severed when jumping between cars).

In the lounge car

The train chugs away from Mbeya station and we settle into the meal car for lunch, pleased with the good time we are making. This means that we can spend some extra time in the Zambian capital of Lusaka before heading to Victoria Falls to ring in the New Year.

Our food arrives and Elsa and I are chatting animatedly about our upcoming adventures when the train lurches, then stops. When it starts moving backwards, our smiles fade into looks of confusion... What is happening?

We backtrack to Mbeya where the train grinds to a halt. No one can tell us what is happening.

After a few hours of waiting, I get off the train and climb onto an out-of-commission cargo car to watch the sunset.

Back in the train, everything has become dark. The three unfortunate side effects of a stopped train are:

1)   No electricity

2)   No running water

3)   The closure of ALL OF THE LATRINES, save one.

We are on a train with hundreds of passengers and ONE squat latrine, without running water. You do the math.

On my way back to our room, I stumble upon Elsa who is happens to be chatting with a slick looking man. He has a lazy eye and is sitting drinking a beer while he hits on her shamelessly. I wonder why she is tolerating it until she introduces him as the conductor. This is how we learn that the locomotive is broken (whatever that means!) and that they need to get a spare part. The conductor assures us that it will be fixed soon, but when we wake up the next morning, we haven’t moved an inch. 
We buy fried dough and bananas from vendors at the side of the track while we wait… and wait… I start to read to pass the time. A full novel later, we still haven’t moved. We are starting to feel dirty going on three days of not showering, but there is nothing to do. We still haven’t entered Zambia and our money is running low. As night falls, metal creaks and the train finally starts chugging forward.

I am lulled to sleep by the soft swaying of the train...

Sleeping peacefully... for a short while

... but soon learn that this portion of the journey is not as smooth as the last as I awake gasping in mid-air. Seconds later my body crashes down onto the hard mattress.

Holly and Elsa have claimed bottom bunks, so I am on a top bunk with a small rail that runs part way along the edge of the bed. As I am hurled repeatedly into the air, I doubt that the measly rail is as high as the space between my airborne body and the mattress .I curl into a ball in hopes that centralizing my weight will keep me closer to the bed. I position myself as close as possible to the wall and make sure to centre my body parallel to the rail. 
The night continues for what feels like forever as I drift in and out of consciousness in a painful and terrified state of confusion. Every time I wake up I’m sure that, this time, the train has derailed. How else could it be so bumpy, sway so wildly? I start thinking about train crashes… how people use the term ‘train wreck’ to describe really bad situations, why in my first aid training they would always model train accidents as the ultimate disaster…

Sometime during the night, the train stops and a flashlight illuminates our cabin. We are crossing the border and the Zambian immigration officials have boarded the train. They claim that the train is too dark to issue visas before leaving. The train jolts its cargo (including our deceptive passports which state that we are in Tanzania) forward as the sun rises over Zambia.

In the morning, the girls and I recount the horrific night and strategize as how to best protect ourselves in the case of a crash (Elsa recommends that we sleep with our heads towards the interior of the train so that in the event it tips over, our heads will be last to land). Bruises form on my hips as the Zambian countryside displays herself. At this point, we have been on the train for 3 nights.

Before seeing much of Zambia, the train grinds to a halt yet again.

We silently hope that this is a regularly planned stop at a dusty station in rural Zambia, but as the hours pass, the latrines close and dusk threatens her re-arrival, our hope dwindles.

Elsa and I set out to find the conductor to ask what has happened this time. He sips his beer and tells us that a fertilizer train has derailed in front of us, blocking our path forward. Not only do they need to drag the train out of the way, but there are also a bajillion tons of fertilizer that need to be shoveled off the track.

At this point, we cancel the second night of our hostel reservation in Livingstone and settle in for another night on the train. If we don’t move soon, we will spend new years eve on the train instead of Victoria falls.

The ridiculousness of the situation strikes us and we sit in the dark giggling while we much on fried dough and bananas… We play music and set my hanging flashlight to the ‘emergency’ setting so that it flashes in the dark like a strobe light. We tell stories to distract ourselves from the fact that we are sitting filthy on the train for the 4^th night in a row.

4th night dance party

After picture - on the ground after 5 days on the train

The next morning the track is cleared and we continue without further delay to our final destination. All in all, the journey has taken 5 days and 4 nights. We disembark at the Kapiri Mposhi station at dusk and explain to the station staff that we aren’t official stamped into the country. A few phone calls later, an immigration official arrives to process our visas. As soon as we are stamped in and our location and passports are re-synchronized, the station power goes off. The only light we have is from my flashlight and the occasional flickers of lightening in the distance. We have to get to Lusaka, about 200 km away to board a bus to Livingstone Victoria falls.

We stumble over luggage and shadows of people in the eerily dark station. In both Malawi and some parts of Zambia, taxis are quite unofficial making it next to impossible to tell the difference between a taxi and a regular car.

We ask for the taxi stand and take down the car’s license plate number before negotiating a price to the Kapiri Mposhi bus station. As we drive through the dark town (yes, the power is out everywhere) our cab starts to slow down and pull over to a place where there are 2 other cars idle on the side of the road. We exchange nervous glances and then start yelling at the cab driver to keep moving.

He tells us that something isn’t working with the car, but we tell him to make it work.

In one silent moment, Elsa and I make eye contact… (A word on Elsa: wide-eyed and curly haired, this young woman works with children in a nutritional program in the village. She is soft-spoken and almost always smiling. In the 5% of the time when she isn’t being the biggest sweetheart ever, she happens to be one of the feistiest women I know. To illustrate this, let me share a quick story. A few months ago she was at a concert in Lilongwe when a man walked by and snatched her purse. Without a moment’s hesitation, she chased after him through the crowd. When he realized she was gaining in on him, he climbed up a wall in attempt to escape. She reached him when he was half-way up the wall - grabbed him by his belt loops, hauled him off the wall and reclaimed her purse before heading back to the concert.)

Back to the creepy taxi: Elsa quickly removes her headscarf and wraps one side around each of her hands, pulling the foot of remaining fabric taut. She is sitting behind him and if he tries anything, she will hold it around his neck and force him to drive. In fear and anticipation of what may come, I flip open the blade of my swiss army knife and hand Holly my whistle.

Fortunately the ‘car starts working’ and he speeds up and drives us to the bus station.

We arrive in Lusaka in the early hours of December 31^st. There isn’t a 2am bus as we had been told and the next buses won’t leave until 7am. They open the bus and we curl up exhausted on our bus seats and sleep for the 5^th consecutive in-transit night. As Lusaka wakes up on New Year’s eve day, the bus starts moving. 7 hours later, we finally arrive in Livingstone.

In my 26 years I have never been so happy to see a shower. It has been 6 days… We check into the hostel, shed our filthy backpacks and discuss who gets to shower in the comfort of the bathroom attached to our room (as opposed to the common showers used by those staying in dorms). Holly arises triumphant. Given that she wasn’t travelling with flip-flops, her only option for shower shoes are her plastic 5 inch heels. (I first found this out while staying at the grimy YWCA in Dar es Salaam – I howled with laughter at the sight of her coming out of the shower in black strappy stilettos and a towel.)

Clean and excited to be far away from the train, we set out to set out for Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world….

Merry Crater Christmas

We had made and confirmed our reservation at the Arusha Inn, but upon arriving we are told that there isn’t enough room. We giggle, exhausted after the Sai Baba debacle and struck by the irony of there being ‘no room at the (Arusha) Inn’ for the Christmas leg of our journey. After some negotiation and questioning the hotel staff, we discover that there is one room with a King bed where the 3 of us can sleep. We burst into laughter again when we hear the number ‘3’ and the word ‘king’ in the same sentence and hum ‘we 3 kings’ on our way upstairs to the room. 

The next day we start our 2-day safari and enter a national park where we spot a few animals and have some fun. We stay overnight in a town just outside of the Ngorongoro Area, which contains the Ngorongoro crater.

Christmas Eve at Sunset

Christmas eve we watch the sunset and hang out at the lodge. We eat diner and pop a bottle of champagne. None of us have spent Christmas away from our families and we are all feeling a bit raw and nostalgic. We pass the bottle around, drinking to family and close friends and talking about our family Christmas traditions while laughing and shedding a few tears. Later in the evening, a young local man comes to the lodge and we strike up conversation. He is incredibly bright and speaks frankly about the problems in the region and his proposed solutions. He says that there is incredibly high HIV prevalence due to the through traffic of safari tour guides and the resulting sex industry. He also tells us the heart-wrenching story of how both of his parents died of AIDS related illness.

We accept his invitation to meet some of his friends in town and sit outside as Tanzanian youth bustle around the small central area of the town of Mosquito (really it was called Mosquito!). We then see our not-so-young and married tour guide drive by. A few minutes later we see him drive the other way flanked by a young woman in the passenger seat.

Based on our recent conversation about tour guides, HIV and the sex industry, this kills the mood and we decide to call it a night. We spend the final hours of Christmas eve and the first few hours of Christmas morning in serious and sometimes agitated conversation. We can't make assumptions, but we discuss our discomfort with the potential financial support we were providing to fuel the grim reality of HIV in the town. We have a open conversation and debate our differing views around responsibility and harm reduction.

I feel paralyzed by the realization that my every action has a (sometimes negative) impact. My head spins and I feel completely lost – I know nothing

We sleep a few hours and wake up to the painfully loud call to prayer emanating from the local Mosque. Usually I am enchanted by its sound, but today is sounds loud and flat.

We trudge to breakfast where our guide is waiting. We say hello and feign normalcy as we try to enjoy the treats we had brought for Christmas day – Amarula for our coffee, cheese and chocolate (all expensive rarities in Malawi). We share with our tour guide and I give the girls each an African headscarf as a gift before we set off for the crater.

The Ngorongoro Crater, often called the ‘8^th Natural Wonder of the World’ and ‘Africa’s Eden’ is situated just South of the Serengeti in Tanzania. It is the world’s largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera (if you are like me and didn’t know what a caldera is, Wikipedia describes it as ‘a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption). This particular crater was formed two to three million years ago by from the eruption of a massive volcano. It is estimated that, within the 2,000ft deep, 100 square mile crater, there are over 30,000 animals.

As we snake up the mountain towards the clouds, the upset of the night before fades away and excitement sets in. We decide to stop at a Maasai village to see how the Masaai people traditionally live. The Maasai are a semi-nomadic group of people that live in Northern Tanzania and Kenya. We meet the chief and negotiate a price before entering the village.

We leave and start descending into the crater. It looks absolutely stunning as the bright green plain welcomes us. The clouds hover gently on the edges of the crater – we are so high up that mountains touch their white softness.

As we descend it becomes quickly obvious that all isn’t well in paradise - something is wrong with our Safari vehicle. The guide can’t seem to shift very easily and we determine that there is a problem with the clutch. We make our way into the crater and he pulls over to fix the car. Not far from us is a herd of Zebras. We quietly open the door and sneak out to get a closer look. Someone makes a small noise and the guide spins around and while reprimanding us, chases us back towards the vehicle. As he yells at us to get back in, we giggle and try to stall to take a few more pictures.

He opens the roof of the vehicle to appease us and make sure we stay in the car. I climb through the opening and onto the roof. When he sees this, I receive another scolding before he clambers into the vehicle and we continue.

I have very few words to describe the experience of being in the crater. At this risk of sounding completely cliche, the best description I can offer is that I felt like I had stepped into Disney’s ‘the Lion King’.  We saw Elephants, Wildebeast, Warthogs, Lions, Hippos, Antelope, Buffalo, Monkeys and even the endangered black Rhino. There was even a rock that looked like pride rock!

Ostrich

Warthogs (aka Pumba)

Waterbuffalo

Lioness in the tree - can you spot her?

Lioness

Wildebeast

The crater was like an incredible animal soup, and one of the most beautiful things I ever seen. We leave, tired and content, after our day of excitement.

What a way to spend Christmas! We gush about all of the animals that we saw and note with mild disappointment that the only thing we didn’t see were Giraffes.

On the drive back to Arusha, we see a herd of the gentle yellow and brown creatures.

We get out to be closer to the gentle animals. Completely satisfied, we drive back to Arusha as the sun sets behind us and Christmas draws to a close. 

Sai Baba ‘Express’

I meet Holly and Elsa back on the mainland and we enjoy a meal atop the roof of a hotel, taking in the towering buildings of Dar Es Salaam before preparing for the next leg of our journey.

Elsa, Holly and I in Dar Es Salaam

The taxi picks us up before 5am and takes us to the bus station. Being just before Christmas, all the buses travelling from Dar to Arusha were booked, and we settle for a cheap commuter bus, the ‘Sai Baba Express’, which we are told, will take us to Arusha in 7 hours.

Onboard it is uncomfortably hot before 7am. As usual, the bus leaves late, after 8 am. Our saving grace is that although we are in a 3-seat row of small, uncomfortable chairs, we are in the front of the bus and have some extra space in front of us. We put our luggage there and take turns sitting on the floor so that our sweaty bodies aren’t pressing up uncomfortably close together.

 Elsa and I - a mere 2 hours in...

Holly taking her turn on the floor

Me taking my turn on the floor

The Sai Baba bumps along slowly, picking up people on the side of the road and stopping (seemingly randomly) to eject passengers. We squish into our seats as bags of random objects and people crowd in front of us. At one point I end up holding a baby – his mom looks incredibly uncomfortable sitting on the floor with him so I reach out my hands as a gesture that I can hold him if she’d like. She passes him to me, and the girls and I take turns holding him. After a substantial length of time, I offer to pass him back to her. She shakes her head and avoids eye contact to prolong her break.

En route to Arusha - view from the window

Tusker (beer) ad - from the bus windown

The first 6 hours of the bus ride are ok, but things become a bit suspect when, after 8 hours we stop for our ‘half-way’ break. We pile out, stretch and buy food from a roadside cafeteria-style restaurant. I agree to watch Holly and Elsa’s food while they go to the washroom. Suddenly, I notice that the restaurant has all but emptied out. A wonky honk emerges from the bus. It’s going to leave without us! All of our luggage is on that bus! I run towards it as it lurches forward. I yell at it to stop. It moves forward again.

I have no choice – I can’t get on the bus and leave my friends, but I can’t allow the bus to leave. I stand a few metres in front of it, turn sideways and spread my legs to sturdy my standing position. I extend my arm out in front of me towards the bus and spread my fingers in a ‘STOP – don’t move any further!!!’ sign.

The bus moves forward a bit more and I’m forced to retreat. I move back but hold the same, ridiculous, defiant position. Holly and Elsa come into view and I yell at them to hurry to the bus. We get on and everyone is laughing. Someone quips ‘You think we could miss you?’ and someone else jokes ‘Do you really think we would leave without you?’. I look around and see that we are the only white people on the bus. They were just having fun with us. We laugh and get ready for the rest of the journey.

5 hours later, Kilimanjaro comes into view. It looks spectacularly big, but it is tough to see because of the clouds and setting sun. At this point we’ve been on this hellish bus for thirteen hours with only one stop. We tell ourselves that we are almost there, but it is another 2 hours before we arrive in Arusha. A passenger says that this is the longest time the bus has ever taken (due to bad traffic and frequent stops).

Later in our travels, we recount the story to a Tanzanian man. He rolls his eyes and knowingly says ‘you didn’t take Sai Baba did you?!’

Apparently the Sai Baba Express is infamous for being hellish. Holly, Elsa and I laugh and agree that from herein we will ‘Sai No to Sai Baba!'.

Sai No to Sai Baba

Zanzibar

I arrive in Dar Es Salaam after midnight, find a cheap hostel, and wake up early to board the ferry to Zanzibar. I perch myself cross-legged on a box atop the deck and happily gaze at the bright blue horizon for the two hours it takes for Zanzibar to display herself.

I fight my way off the boat and through the crowd of vendors, tour guides and taxi drivers. The sight is immediately stunning: turquoise water, wooden dhows (traditional boats) and a mixture of women and men dressed in both modern clothes and traditional Swahili coast dress.

Streets of Stowntown

Traditional Style Door, Stonetown

Stone town, the capital of Zanzibar is a labrynth of narrow, twisty pedestrian streets. I get lost immediately and finally pay a taxi driver to walk me to my hostel. I’m pleasantly surprised with the hostel after the YWCA in Dar. Named for it’s incredibly steep steps, ‘Pyramids’ is very reasonable but has some real Zanzibar charm.

Pyramids

Zanzibar Bed - Pyramids

I drop off my things in the room that my friends Elsa and Holly are already occupying. It has 3 zanzibar style beds, and an old Arab-style chandelier.

Too excited to stay put, I set out for a meander around town and am enchanted by the beautiful colours, smells and architecture. I have never seen a place like this before! I barely mind the constant hassling as vendors, tour operators and beach boys call ‘Jambo’ at me and try to engage me in conversation so that they can then make their sales pitch.

I head back to the hostel after a few hours of exploring and meet Holly and Elsa. These two wonderful Canadian women, (a gender specialist and nutritionist respectively) also volunteer in Lilongwe and kindly agreed to let me tag along with them on their holiday adventure.

We enjoy a sundowner at a nearby hotel and set off in the morning with a group of Canadian volunteers for the beach house we rented on Jambiani, on the South-East coast of Zanzibar.

Fairytale Beach house, Jambiani

Jambiani Beach

Canadian Crew at the Beach House

Sunrise Over Jambiani Beach

We spend the next few days in beach paradise, overindulging in delicious food and drink and enjoying the beautiful scenery. After 2 days, I leave them to do a spice tour (Zanzibar is the spice capital of the world and the tour takes you through a spice farm – showing you different spices as they appear in the jungle) and visit a cave where slaves used to be hidden before being shipped north to Arabia. 

Spice Tour

Spice Tour

Spice Tour

Spice Tour

A fascinating but exhausting day, I head back to Stone Town by myself. I wasn’t yet ready to stop exploring and wanted to soak up as much of this mystical place as possible before starting the next leg of our journey. 

I shower, get dressed up and take myself out for dinner. I stop first at a delicious vegetarian restaurant for a glass of wine and appetizer before continuing to one of the most ornate and decadent Indian restaurants that I have ever been to. Everyone is exceptionally friendly and the waiter comes frequently to the table to check how I am and chat. I savour my meal and surroundings as one can only do when dining alone. When a warm bubbling starts in my chest, I can’t help but allow it to push upwards as a broad, dorky smile stretches across my face. I also can’t help but indulge my craziness by writing a short ode to my meal:

***

Dear spiced coconut vegetable curry

Thank you for the lingering heat that you have imparted –

On the slug-like expanse that is my tongue and

The shingled roof of my palate

***

I then continue to a beach side bar and words pour out of my pen and into my notebook as I sip on a rum and coke and listen to the waves lapping against the shore.

I enjoy a conversation with an eclectic group of locals before going home. 

In the moments before I fall asleep, there is no where that I would rather be on earth.

As I drift off I reflect on how Zanzibar is a strikingly obvious mélange of worlds joined by an ocean-

An unmistakably bantu Africa base, flavoured with Indian and infused by Arabic influences.

Where some of the deepest hues of culture are found - a perfectly spiced recipe

Stirred in the warm, salty and vastly expansive bowl that is the Indian Ocean.