Some previous posts have discussed Tanzanian travel, but having just finished a weekend trip with its own share of adventures, I decided to take a post to discuss the bus system in a little more depth, in light of that trip.
The first thing you realize when you try to get a ticket to a bus in Tanzania is that the busy system is extremely unorganized, yet somehow Tanzanians make things work. When you enter a large bus station at a regional hub, you are quickly surrounded by people trying to convince you to take their bus, and they take this very seriously. There are a large number of major, Greyhound-style (minus the bathrooms) bus companies in Tanzania, and while most of them have specific routes or types of routes that they specify in, by in large the competition is fierce between bus companies running on the same lines. On top of this competition for customers, the actual bus stations themselves offer little in the way of clear organization. It is unclear where busses wait to leave, and where you need to be to catch the bus you want. However, the bus companies seem to make it work, and I have never been unable to figure out where I need to go, though not without some confusion.
For instance, this weekend I was returning to Ngara, and had purchased a ticket at TAQUA, a bus company that specializes in cross-border trips. They run a bus both to Kigali and to Bujunbura, and both these busses go directly through Ngara district. However, they do not run every day, and only one of them goes directly through Ngara town, the other passes through a town further away, but it is a short taxi ride from town. So, I bought a ticket and was assured that on my way home I would be taking the Bujunbura bus. On the day of my travel, I was sitting and waiting for the bus, at the bus office. After a delay, I was told to follow a representative from the bus company, who led me to a Falon bus. I was very confused, and after a long conversation where I insisted this was the wrong bus, they convinced me that it was indeed the bus I had bought a ticket for. It wasn’t, but it was going in the same direction, and I guess maybe the Bujunbura bus wasn’t running that day. The Westwardly bound busses headed for Ngara region all stop in a city called Kahama for the night, and I knew that the next morning, since I did not want to continue on this bus ( it was going to Bukoba, which is over 100 km North of Ngara town), I would be able to catch a coaster.
A coaster is a smaller bus, ranging from the size of a small van, to about half the size of large passenger bus, that makes shorter trips between cities. I discussed this with the conductor of my bus, who eventually agreed to pay for the coast of my coaster, given that I had been assured that my bus was going to Ngara town. At 5 am, I woke up (or rather, was still awake, since sleeping on a bus is difficult, even when it’s not moving), and had the conductor lead me to the specific coaster. He took my ticket, had a conversation with the driver, gave me a thumbs up, and left. Busses in Tanzania not going very long distances wait until they are full before they leave, so that the driver is able to maximize profit. This one was full by 6, though not without some arguments breaking out among passengers, about who had claimed seats, and who had not. Sometimes people will wait for hours on hours for the bus to have enough people to go.
Eventually, we were underway, and I discovered that I would indeed have to pay about halfway through the trip. This coaster was ever so slightly larger than a small van, with 3 rows of three child-size seats, and a fourth seat in each row that folded down in the aisle. These seats did not have backs. There were two more seats up front, not including the driver’s seat. Full enough to leave meant that every seat was full, and that 3 men were sitting on a ledge facing into the back of the van. So, when we left, there were 18 passengers, plus the driver and the conductor. As we drove, people came on board, and left, but for most of the drive we somehow managed to squeeze an additional 10 passengers into the van. One more squeezed onto the ledge, the already small seated rows had another passenger added each, and six people stood in no space. It was a trip, and I am glad that it was only a three and a half hour ride in this coaster. This is a very common practice for just about any small transport in Tanzania.
In the large busses, at least, you are generally guaranteed your own seat, unless there aren’t any more. On the way to my destination in this trip, about 3 people stood through the night because there were no seats. Another 3 were sitting on plastic containers. In the middle of the night, when many passengers, myself included, were sleeping, we went over a speed bump really fast. Shouts rang out, I banged my head rather hard and had to spend the next hour working out my next, and the lady behind my lost her two front teeth. Yes, she l lost her two front teeth. One of the was fake apparently, but after the initial shouts died down she continued to scream. Somehow she had banged her teeth directly on to the very hard plastic of my seat back and they had both come completely out. Another passenger handed her a handkerchief, and as the bus continued on its way, her moans of pain began to dissipate. It’s all in a night of Tanzanian travel.