Riding the Rails

On December 19, Wes and I excitedly boarded a tuk-tuk and wobbled our way along the edges of standstill traffic from my office to the Tazara train station to catch the once-a-week train to Zambia. Tazara is the name of the rail link between Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Kipiri Moshi, Zambia (Kapiri Moshi is approximately 200 km away from Lusaka, the capital of Zambia). According to my guidebook, the train trip could take anywhere from 42 to 46 hours. Our plan was to take the train to Kipiri Moshi, find our way to Lusaka and then fly to Johannesburg to spend Christmas with my family.

We arrived at the train station in fine form, only to be told that the train had been delayed by 25 hours. While I had built in a 48-hour buffer between our estimated time of arrival in Kipiri Moshi and our flight to Johannesburg, I hadn’t counted on a 25-hour delay off the bat. 25 hours is a long time. Wes and I trekked back into Dar, bags and all, and adjusted our flight arrangements accordingly. On a positive note, the delay meant that we got to hang out with Prasanna (the CBA intern placed in Addis Abba) for the evening and to compare our experiences over a couple of bottles of beer.

The next day, we taxied our way back to the train station only to have a deja vue moment when the ticket agent told us the train was delayed by a further 5 hours so it would be leaving at 8 p.m that evening. This caused a bit of head shaking and muttering about public transportation on my part. Thankfully, there was a first class lounge in which to spin away the hours and an alternative transportation plan if things really went south, like if the train didn’t show up. Outside the first class lounge, the 300 or so people who would be travelling in second and third class sat behind a small sign that dictated that people line up in neat rows while waiting for the train. My guess is that people were willing to sit in these lines for 6 or more hours because they would then be the first on the train and the first to select the good seats.

True to their word, the train showed up 7 p.m. and the station gates were opened for boarding an hour after the train arrived. Boarding was controlled chaos that was managed by two khaki-clad men, who I took to be policemen. These men measured the flow of people through the station gate with a short stick, the butt of a gun and loud voices. One guy who went against the flow was rewarded with a swift whack to the head with the butt of the gun. After seeing that, I wasn’t too keen to be within range of the policemen. Without the policemen’s presence, I think people would have stampeded the train. However, the casual manner with which force was employed was a little unexpected and rather off putting.

Once on the train, Wes and I took stock of the first class cabin that had been reserved for Miss Louw and family. We had to book the entire cabin, as there is a prohibition against men and women sharing a cabin in any other circumstances (booking the cabin cost approx. $275 Cdn). The cabin had four berths, blankets and pillows, a little table and a window to the outside world. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the train also had a basic shower, a bar cart, and a food cart with decent food at very decent prices. The only hiccup with the food cart is that you have to pay with the currency of the country in which the train is travelling, so shillings in Tanzania and kwacha once you cross the border into Zambia. We found it next to impossible to buy kwacha in Dar and we had high hopes of doing some money exchange at the border (which we successfully did). 29 hours after the anticipated departure time, the train set off with a lurch and the comforting click-clack of the railway ties.

The train wound its way through subsistence farms, tiny railway stations and excited, waving hands. At each train station, bags of rice, baskets of mangoes and starched fish were hoisted to our window for our inspection. In a memorable moment, Wes did a half-duck dive out of the window as he tried to reach the mangoes proffered to him by a small, Zambian girl. Once Wes had grabbed a couple of mangoes, the little girl’s legs took off and we had to call her back to pay her. I think she was still mastering the principles of selling. At most of the stations, little children stared into our cabin with curiosity. Sometimes, these little children would look at us with entreating eyes and open palms, or they would repeatedly ask for pens, bottles and soap. I found the level of poverty and these semi-constant requests somewhat depressing.

After 55 hours on the train, we glided into Kipiri Moshi at the rather ungodly hour of 2 a.m. Overall, the train journey was fantastic and incredibly relaxing. It was rather startling to have to get off the train and face reality. Reality at Kipiri Moshi was bedding down for the night in a cavernous train station with a few hundred other people. Wes and I spent the night hugging our bags, as we tried to find a comfortable spot on an emaciated couch. We were up with the birds and away from the train station at 5:30 a.m. to search for the mythical bus to Lusaka. After waiting at the rather informal Kipiri Moshi bus station for 4 hours and watching over-packed "big buses" roar their way to Lusaka, Wes and I went against the general advice to take a "big bus" and boarded a "little bus". The little bus was a little slower, a little fuller and a little cheaper (35,000 kwacha), but it got us to Lusaka.