African Bus Ride

Bus in Kenya An African Bus Ride
March 7, 1988

At the Minnesota State Fair, we paid $1.50 for a three-minute amusement park ride. In Kenya, it cost only $3.00 for a hair-raising, six-hour roller coaster ride from Mombasa to Tavati in the back of an African bus. We were en route to Nygorongoro Crater in Tanzania.

It was the first African bus we'd seen in which nearly everyone was seated. On the local and city buses, they keep loading people until there's not a square centimeter of space left and several folks are hanging out the doors (see photo). Imagine trying to push your way out from a back seat when you reach your stop! Only the ticket taker was skilled at moving through the crush.

At least in Kenya there are seats. In Cameroon and some other countries, they've discovered that you can cram in more paying passengers if you take the seats out.

As we were loading, a young man removed my pack from the overhead rack and replaced it with 32 cases of shortening. The first big bump we hit knocked some of the cases out of the rack and nearly hit one woman in the head. The man got up and rearranged them all. When he returned to his seat, another man had occupied it. A shouting match ensued, with some tussling thrown in. Soon everyone on the bus had taken a side, with the exception of the driver and ticket-taker, who seemed content to let them fight it out on their own. People were shouting in Swahili, cheering, and clapping as the argument progressed. Eventually, the interloper was unseated with his shirt badly torn, to the cheers of the crowd.

At one point, the bus chugged up a hill, laboring to overtake a long lorry. The crest of the hill was getting closer and closer, and it was not hard to imagine an overloaded matatu racing up the opposite side of the hill at 80 mph. Fortunately, the matatu was imaginary, and we made it past the truck just as we reached the top. The sweat on our bodies right then was not from the 85 degree heat.

We arrived at Voi just about sundown and bought refreshments from street hawkers--boiled eggs, Cokes, cashews, and fruit drinks.

From Voi to Tavati was rough dirt road, and as the bus thundered down a hill, the headlights flickered off. The driver braked and they flickered back on. For the next two hours, they were off an increasing percentage of the time. We navigated largely by starlight.

Once, the lights went off completely and the bus slowed to a stop. "Maybe now someone will get out and fix them," I thought. A moment later they flickered on again, illuminating eight or nine large animals crossing the road just in front of us.

"They're lions!" I exclaimed. The Masai in the seat ahead of us had seen them, too, and were chattering with excitement. The Masai have a close relationship with lions. Even in these times, a young man is traditionally expected to kill a lion with only a spear in order to prove his manhood and claim a bride. He must present the lion's tail to the girl's father.

The Masai got out with their spears and followed after the lions in the darkness.

Later, the bus stopped and an attempt was made at repairs (after the driver carefully checked the surrounding bushes with a flashlight). The lights couldn't be fixed, so for the last 20 miles or so, the man with the flashlight hung out the door to slightly illuminate the road ahead. Unfortunately, there was no moon, and nights near the equator are very dark.

We arrived in Tavati at about midnight. Shouldering our packs, we wondered where we would sleep for the night. There were no electric lights in evidence, and we were in the middle of the town. We had all our important stuff with us. Might there be thieves in the dark streets?

We asked the bus driver for assistance. He called over a rough-looking teenager and directed him to guide us to a hotel. As we followed him through the deserted and narrow streets, I became more and more uneasy. This did not seem a safe situation.

But the young man guided us straight to a hotel, where we rented a tiny (safe) room for $3.00. I was so thankful for the boy's honesty that I urged Dennis to give him a good tip. He had more than earned it.