“Hail Mary, full of grace…”

“Experience traveling in Tanzania” – check. That was one of our assignments for Shadow this week and 9 of us definitely got our fill. The problems started before we even left Morogoro. Paul, a staff member, helped us find the bus when it arrived but when we boarded, there were people sitting in our reserved seats. Most of us just found random seats and 3 of us were in the middle back so we were able to pile our big bags at the end of the aisle. Then someone from the bus company realized there were too many people for the number of seats and we had to move to our assigned seats, which meant our large bags had to be placed between our legs or under the seats (they didn’t fit above). A few people (not in our group) ended up sitting in the aisle even. Lesson #1 when traveling: pack into smaller bags even if it means taking 2 bags instead of 1.

As we drove through Mikumi National Park, our bus broke down. Not only did the bus guys standing outside the bus look worried, people in passing vehicles also had the look of, “Oh man, they’re screwed.” Someone in our group said s/he saw a large, dark puddle under the bus. At one point, Megan saw a large section of the bottom of the bus on the ground below it as they attempted to fix it. After 1.5 hours, the bus was back together and limped to the town of Mikumi. We sat at the garage there for about 3 hours before we finally left.

Since we were now running very late, the bus driver decided he needed to drive very fast – on a very curvy road. The 9 of us looked at one another as we promptly buckled up (or made sure we were still buckled). If the bus went down the cliff, we had the greatest probability of survival. As you’ve probably guessed, we made it through ok but I was praying during most of it and am glad I’d gone to church before going to the bus station.

We aren’t supposed to travel at night but we had no choice. Gene and Paff got off at their stop to meet their PCV and the rest of us continued on to Njombe. At one point, there was a long line of stopped vehicles. Our driver didn’t want to wait but there want’ quite enough room to squeeze between the truck in front of us and the vehicle to the right. He tried anyway. The side-view mirror broke off and he kept going. That’s right folks, we had a hit-and-run.

COSing PCV Andy met us at the bus station in Njombe when we arrived at 23:30 (11:30pm) – 14 hours after we started but at least we were still alive. When we arrived, Andy said he would have recommended not taking Grazia Bus Lines; now we know for when we buy our return ticket to Morogoro. He put us in a couple of taxis and sent us to our hotel where Marilyn, my Shadow PCV, was waiting with water and some food for dinner/midnight snack. In summary, we were stuffed on a hot bus for 14 hours that broke down a half dozen times, defied physics going around turns, and had a hit-and-run. I can’t wait for the return trip.