After Vic Falls, we stayed in Lusaka a night, eating with the MCC Zambia Country Reps. The Fasts made a mean meal and showed off their impressive cake cutting skills. We also had time during our trip to visit with friends from MCC orientation, the Moellers. On Friday we started on our incredible journey, a three hour bus ride to Kapiri Mposhi train station, 48 hours of train ride, and then 12 hours of bus ride from Dat es Salaam to Nairobi.
The highlight of the first leg was the bus pastors. Each bus ride in Zambia began with a short sermon, prayer and then offering. Seemingly a whole community of itinerant pastor live with way. On the road to Kapiri Mposhi, just as the first preacher got off the bus, a second stood up and decided to extend the message. Part entertainer, part pastor, part wacko, this guy gave a decent sermon about the prodigal son and gave the money he collected to various other people on the bus (oldest woman, youngest child, etc...).
Finally, once we reached Kapiri Mposhi we realized we would have to find the train station some kilometers away. As at every other bus stop, people crowd around the bus offering taxi rides (and various foods) which crescendos into a frenzy of screaming when white people are spotted. You have to have a system of how to deal with this, as it can be pretty intimidating at first. We tend to ignore them, walk a short distance away where we can have some space, and then talk to individuals or us competing drivers to lower the price. We ended up getting a taxi for 10,000 kwacha (about 2.50) and then saw another white guy who was also going to the train station. We split the cab fare (though the driver tried to up the price to 15,000 when we got there) and then got our tickets at the window. A four-berth sleeper in 1st class cost us about $200 and included 4 beds, a small table and a window.
After waiting for a few hours at the station, spent mostly watching a crew video a BBC documentary, we finally boarded and started moving around 4pm. The first few hours were exciting as we felt like we were embarking on a great journey. In the evening we ate dinner in the dining car and then played some card games together. The first night was difficult as the constant screeching of brakes and various human noise woke us often.
Day two was again enjoyable. We entered into Tanzania around noon and had no problems getting a visa or our Zambian Kwacha changed for Tanzanian shillings. The country-side was lush with grasses and endless fields of maize. We were quite jealous of the abundance in this place compared to our home in Najile. In the evening we ordered food from our car but were disappointed when it didn't arrive until nearly 9pm.
Day three was the longest day. We were hoping to arrive in Dar Es Salaam mid-afternoon and by the look of our maps we were ahead of schedule. By noon it seemed like we were coming up on the home stretch so we packed our bags and were ready to go. As the afternoon rolled by, it got hotter and hotter. The small fan in our sleeper didn't work so we all huddled around the window trying to get some breeze. At each small village we stopped, waited (seemingly for nobody) and then started up again. By 4pm we were getting thoroughly tired of the train, to the point where even seeing a few animals out the window barely garnered a smile.
Finally, at around 5:30 we pulled into Dar “station.” When we got off we could not see a platform and were again confronted with the taxi pandemonium. We chose our guy and walked along the train tracks, to a small platform, then out to the parking lot. We found the hotel we were planning on staying at easily but when we went to the bus office we realized we didn't have enough Tanzanian shillings to buy tickets. We'd be staying in Dar another day, and it turned out that was a good thing.
