Wrapping It Up in Tanzania

Our train ride from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya was smooth. Despite the warnings about how unreliable the trains can be and the horror stories about this particular train taking as many as 5 days (vs the scheduled 24 hours), we left on time and arrived into Mbeya about 22 hours later. The train line is called Tazara, and it is really a nice train. With a first class ticket you get a cabin that sleeps four with very comfortable beds and all the other perks that come with train travel: the ability to get up and walk when you want, lounge cars and dining cars. The only downside was that Keith and I got booked into different cabins. In general they separate the men and women into separate cabins. If you want to be in a cabin with your spouse, you must book the entire cabin (i.e. buy four tickets for two people). Needless to say we are too cheap for that, so a night apart it was. It turned out fine. Neither of us slept great. After hanging out in the lounge car for a while we went back to our cabins to find our stuff nicely moved from the coveted bottom bunk up to the top bunk. The trains are not air conditioned, so you get the most airflow from the open windows by being on the bottom, and there is less rocking down there. No problem, right because they have fans. So, after climbing into bed and realizing how stuffy it is up there on top, I turned the fan on. Ahhhh, relief. Not so fast. The somewhat crabby lady below me immediately started complaining about how much the fan stunk, and she was "suffering" terribly and insisted I turn it off. Rather than pick a fight, I obliged, grumbling under my breath. I don't think she was too excited about sharing with a mzungu (white person). Halfway through the ride at about 2:00 AM we got to a major stop, and two of the ladies (Mrs. Grumpy included) got off, and there was just two of us in there for the remainder.

The Tazara train somewhere in southern Tanzania (sorry, couldn't get Flickr to rotate...):


We arrived into Mbeya at about 1:00 PM the next day and have been pleasantly surprised and pleased with this town so far. Mbeya sits at about 1800 m, so the air is cool, crisp and fresh. And the temperature is perfect (probably around 75 degrees). It is a smaller town, which is always nice. So the hustle bustle is more tolerable and the people in general are much, much friendlier. We spent yesterday just walking around, not sure if we'd linger here another day or just move on to Malawi. There is some hiking around here and some decent sights to see, so we wandered into the tourism office of Sisi kwa Sisi and were so impressed with the gentleman we talked to, and keen on the idea of moving our legs around a bit that we booked a hike with him for today.

So today, Felix led us to the top of Lusaka peak. An elevation gain of 1,000 meters with views of the sprawling city of Mbeya as well as the higher peak of Mt Mbeya. It was a very pleasant walk (although a bit of a shock to my poor, unconditioned lungs). Great weather, nice views, and really nice conversation with Felix on the way up. This man is 27 years old, and self-taught in local politics, world politics, economics and language (he can speak 6!). We knew Tanzania and Africa in general have their fare share of problems, but listening to Felix we got a real feel for how bad things are all over Africa. He is a very upbeat person, but expressed several times how pessimisstic he is about the future of his country. The problems of course center around corruption...at all levels. A few interesting, albeit depressing things we learned: There are more Malawi nurses working in the UK than in Malawi, and to see a doctor you have to bribe him/her because the government does not pay the doctor enough money.

Here is Keith and Felix at the summit with Mbeya town behind them:


An eye-opening conversation for us, and another moment where we stop and realize how lucky we really are with all the opportunities we have and the solid, stable background that we come from.

So tomorrow we board a bus and cross the border into Malawi, where the people are one of the poorest on earth, but supposedly also some of the most genuinely friendly. Internet may be sparse, so hopefully it won't be too long until our next installment.