Malawi to Arusha via Dar es Salaam
1992 - being a traveller of limited means and an unerring belief that I was indestructable, had managed to hitch hike from Cape Town and had made it, without too much of a problem as far as the northern border of Malawi. One or two little incidents along the way (like being shot at in a hostel in Harare - they were blanks, but the gentleman had not thought to appraise me of this fact before hand, I thought; 'Splendid'), not something that I had wanted to worry my mother about at the time...

I digress..... I was heading towards a job as a ranger at the Ngorororororo (sic) crater and needed to get there asap. Fastest and most cost effective method was a local bus. Humm, cheap certainly, and wonderfully unencumbered with the ravages of any form of luxury (such as padded seats or toilets) - still 36hrs, how bad could this be?

To paraphrase Spike Milligan; I boarded the bur a fit, friendly, 24 year old... and got off, 2 days later, a crippled, stinking wreak of about 70.

It was hell, I managed to bag a back row seat, not being aware that it was allocated seating... No problem, I'll happily move. Not good! I was squeezed between a rather full-figured lady and her noxious goat and an equally large, but rather dapper, elderly gentleman who was on his way to an Aids convention in Nairobi (Not relevant, just an interesting bloke)

Obviously I was not in a position to blend inconspiciously in to the background, so I became the best thing to point at (gets a little trying after a few hours)

The toilet problem was not an issue for me - bunged up good and proper, also somewhat dehydrated; however the same could not be said for some of my fellow passengers, some of whom took to relieving themselves in the stairwell whilst the bus was in motion (so to speak). Guess where my revised seating position was.... Deep, deep joy was felt by all.

sleep was out of the question, also as we had joined the bus early in the morning so I had no chance to buy any shillings, only had US currency (fine for larger cities, not the roadside truck stops we visited) - so not refreshments for me (I had a can of beans in my pack). Could'nt actually move without disturbing my fellow passengers and their pets.

However, we arrived, I collected my kit from the roof and made contact with the company I was going to work for... Then began to feel unwell, really unwell - temperature of 105, seeing things. Malaria is not very nice.

I will forever be thankful that I didn't go down with it 24hrs earlier.

Ended up flying home a couple of weeks later, 5 days in St Pancras tropical diseases unit where they discovered that I had bilharzia as well, which was nice
(conanow, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:55, Reply)