Penny on the train track
June 12th 2011, Kigoma. The train is so packed with screaming kids, boob-flashing moms, mumbling 90-year-olds, blind beggars, untalented musicians, obvious thieves, annoying sellers, talking goats, cackling chickens, countless bags of rice, potato, corn and unknown ugly smelling stuff that it might seem funny, but it aint. People keep forcing their way on and off the wagons, seemingly at random, while we sit hunched in our corner hoping that some of them won't make it back on the train before it leaves the station. Not that we think it will ever leave.
An hour than two pass as we get baked by the sun though the open windows, while an increadibly strog smell of urine reaches us from the outside. Than it happens. People still running parallel to the rails, the station becomes smaller and smaller and finally landscapes start sliding away over our shoulders. We can smell the wind speeding up and the perfume of miles left behind. We're off, final destination Dar es Salaam. Both sides of the railroad are crowded with people, like an audience saluting astronauts headed for the Moon. There we are, far off in a bright, dry and surreal universe, waiting for it to become even more surreal as hours and miles pass. The worst parts are the stops and their unpredictable, but always significant lenght. And when even more people pour into the train on the next stop you do think "they must be joking", but they're not. At one stop we walk towards the entrance of the wagon ad take a peak outside and there they are, right beneath us, men peeing ON the train. Some moments our biggest worry is how the heck are we gonna disintagle ourself and get through the human labyrinth and to the toilet. Other times we partly lose contact with our limbs. Others again we're far off in the vicinities of the Moon with fellow travelers, saluting an unknown world that keeps waving at us.
The sunrise is amazing. Everything goes pink and orange and we even managed to get some sleep - more out of exaustion than for the comfort. The train's waking up, the nameless characters that surround us have barely opened their eyes, starting to make noises again. The baby repetedly smacking the floor with his lollipop before once again putting it back into his mouth. The old woman on our left that tries and tries, with all her strenght, to slaughter the coacroches crawling on the walls but ends up just patting them. The mom with the cool hairstyle, a little girl under her seat and her lap full of chapati, rice, tea, cups, pots and pans. The only guy who speaks english and keeps chasing away the people sitting on our necks, arms and feet. They're all here again. And than there are the endless stops again. And us, waiting for a gust of wind.
We travel through brown, yellow, red ground. Dead trees and dry grass. We're sneaking though an endless fall, smuggling hopes for a summer. Than it's dark again. The coacroaches make their appearance on stage, and we observe them silently, squeezed together, swimming in sweat, smelly, hungry and tired with still half of the way ahead of us. We look for an escape in the small stories inside the train, looking at the nameless passengers that we now feel like we've known for ages. The last sunrise is magical, announcing the approaching of Dar Es Salaam far away on the horizon. Crawling towards the coast of Tanzania is hard, the Heart of Africa is an entangled piece of wonder. Finally we're there, as if just a few minutes had passed since we left. The miles are long gone, as if they belonged to the moon. The astronauts have landed.
We walk trough the nightlights of Dar after a cold shower and think THAT was a once in a lifetime experience. Once ONLY. Yeah right. A few days in Dar es Salaam arguing over the Mozambiqua visa, a week on spice paradise Zanzibar and we're back on a train. A sleeping wagon this time. First class, that is. And it is wonderful, lying down, a book in our lap, the miles piling up behind us on the Tzara Line, the landscape painted by sundown racing by. We're Neil Armstrong again and Mbeya is our Moon, but for those waching from either side of the rails we could be going anywhere from Zambia to Venus. Us mzungus, the aliens. Our souls get sleepy, the comfort like morphine. A french, a brit and the two of us. A bubble floating by.
We get off the train, crawl into Malawi, drive up a mountain and pitch our tent on the edge of a cliff in Mushroom Farm. A couple of stunning waterfalls, three breathtaking sunriseses, a hike to Livingstonia and off we are again. A hike down the mountain with backpacks whose weight is just wrong. We reach Nkhata bay, get on the hudred year old ferry Ilala to Wakwenda retreat on Chizumulu Island, an oasis owned by the crazy brit Nick. That is heaven on earth and a whole other story, but the short of it is, a paddle around the island, Ocean's Eleven on the telly, a short climb for cell phone coverage. Every cell in our body is finally completely at peace with the world, we pass through Likoma to have a look at Malawi's second biggest (and most oddly placed) cathedral, get on the ferry again. The Ilala reaches Metangula in the middle of the night, so packed with people that we have to climb down the sides like frakin' James Bond just to reach the rescue boat that will finally carry us ashore. A grumpy immigration officer with a flashlight adds teo half-hearted stamps to our passports, and two dusty towns later we're in Cuamba, at the train station, waiting in line at 4 a.m.
We're leaves in the wind and pennies on the train track, waiting for our judgement day. It's the 15th of july, about a month after we left Kigoma. The world wakes up and there are people peeing on the train again, people staring, bags of rice and potatoes, people selling onions, roorts, carrots, boiled egges and grilled mice on sticks.
As the train starts moving the sky softly brightens, awakening the mountains around us. Gigantic monsters from an era yet to come, futuristic statues of unbeliavable proportions, shapes from another world. The mist is melted away by the rising sun, thought snakes of fog still hide around some of the summits and cover others like a wave from the sea. It's only a ten hours ride this time. We gape at stone hills shaped like turtles, rabbit ears, cupcakes and pyramids. You end up wondering whether we're in a real part of Planet Earth or if this is all a strange, strage dream. It might as well be.
By the time the train reaches its destination Nampula all the toilets are filled with oddities and one has to climb over people sitting on top of potato and rice bags to get anywhere. So we just sit still, looking around, in a soft shell of numbness that has become our crust, an armour that both shields and exposes us to this mad world. As we get off the train we realize that of course we've been flattened. There is no other way of getting around in eastern and southeastern Africa but being as thin as possible, squeezing in and slipping through. We look to our left and know that the Indian Ocean is still a couple of hours away, and we remember everything we've been through. Traces of the Central, Tzara and Mozambiquan line appear on our skin like invisible tattoos, and our hearts warm up like suns. There we are again, pennies on the train track. Looking for a place we don't know.
June 12th 2011, Kigoma. The train is so packed with screaming kids, boob-flashing moms, mumbling 90-year-olds, blind beggars, untalented musicians, obvious thieves, annoying sellers, talking goats, cackling chickens, countless bags of rice, potato, corn and unknown ugly smelling stuff that it might seem funny, but it aint. People keep forcing their way on and off the wagons, seemingly at random, while we sit hunched in our corner hoping that some of them won't make it back on the train before it leaves the station. Not that we think it will ever leave.
An hour than two pass as we get baked by the sun though the open windows, while an increadibly strog smell of urine reaches us from the outside. Than it happens. People still running parallel to the rails, the station becomes smaller and smaller and finally landscapes start sliding away over our shoulders. We can smell the wind speeding up and the perfume of miles left behind. We're off, final destination Dar es Salaam. Both sides of the railroad are crowded with people, like an audience saluting astronauts headed for the Moon. There we are, far off in a bright, dry and surreal universe, waiting for it to become even more surreal as hours and miles pass. The worst parts are the stops and their unpredictable, but always significant lenght. And when even more people pour into the train on the next stop you do think "they must be joking", but they're not. At one stop we walk towards the entrance of the wagon ad take a peak outside and there they are, right beneath us, men peeing ON the train. Some moments our biggest worry is how the heck are we gonna disintagle ourself and get through the human labyrinth and to the toilet. Other times we partly lose contact with our limbs. Others again we're far off in the vicinities of the Moon with fellow travelers, saluting an unknown world that keeps waving at us. 
The sunrise is amazing. Everything goes pink and orange and we even managed to get some sleep - more out of exaustion than for the comfort. The train's waking up, the nameless characters that surround us have barely opened their eyes, starting to make noises again. The baby repetedly smacking the floor with his lollipop before once again putting it back into his mouth. The old woman on our left that tries and tries, with all her strenght, to slaughter the coacroches crawling on the walls but ends up just patting them. The mom with the cool hairstyle, a little girl under her seat and her lap full of chapati, rice, tea, cups, pots and pans. The only guy who speaks english and keeps chasing away the people sitting on our necks, arms and feet. They're all here again. And than there are the endless stops again. And us, waiting for a gust of wind. 
We travel through brown, yellow, red ground. Dead trees and dry grass. We're sneaking though an endless fall, smuggling hopes for a summer. Than it's dark again. The coacroaches make their appearance on stage, and we observe them silently, squeezed together, swimming in sweat, smelly, hungry and tired with still half of the way ahead of us. We look for an escape in the small stories inside the train, looking at the nameless passengers that we now feel like we've known for ages. The last sunrise is magical, announcing the approaching of Dar Es Salaam far away on the horizon. Crawling towards the coast of Tanzania is hard, the Heart of Africa is an entangled piece of wonder. Finally we're there, as if just a few minutes had passed since we left. The miles are long gone, as if they belonged to the moon. The astronauts have landed.
We walk trough the nightlights of Dar after a cold shower and think THAT was a once in a lifetime experience. Once ONLY. Yeah right. A few days in Dar es Salaam arguing over the Mozambiqua visa, a week on spice paradise Zanzibar and we're back on a train. A sleeping wagon this time. First class, that is. And it is wonderful, lying down, a book in our lap, the miles piling up behind us on the Tzara Line, the landscape painted by sundown racing by. We're Neil Armstrong again and Mbeya is our Moon, but for those waching from either side of the rails we could be going anywhere from Zambia to Venus. Us mzungus, the aliens. Our souls get sleepy, the comfort like morphine. A french, a brit and the two of us. A bubble floating by.
We get off the train, crawl into Malawi, drive up a mountain and pitch our tent on the edge of a cliff in Mushroom Farm. A couple of stunning waterfalls, three breathtaking sunriseses, a hike to Livingstonia and off we are again. A hike down the mountain with backpacks whose weight is just wrong. We reach Nkhata bay, get on the hudred year old ferry Ilala to Wakwenda retreat on Chizumulu Island, an oasis owned by the crazy brit Nick. That is heaven on earth and a whole other story, but the short of it is, a paddle around the island, Ocean's Eleven on the telly, a short climb for cell phone coverage. Every cell in our body is finally completely at peace with the world, we pass through Likoma to have a look at Malawi's second biggest (and most oddly placed) cathedral, get on the ferry again. The Ilala reaches Metangula in the middle of the night, so packed with people that we have to climb down the sides like frakin' James Bond just to reach the rescue boat that will finally carry us ashore. A grumpy immigration officer with a flashlight adds teo half-hearted stamps to our passports, and two dusty towns later we're in Cuamba, at the train station, waiting in line at 4 a.m.
We're leaves in the wind and pennies on the train track, waiting for our judgement day. It's the 15th of july, about a month after we left Kigoma. The world wakes up and there are people peeing on the train again, people staring, bags of rice and potatoes, people selling onions, roorts, carrots, boiled egges and grilled mice on sticks.
As the train starts moving the sky softly brightens, awakening the mountains around us. Gigantic monsters from an era yet to come, futuristic statues of unbeliavable proportions, shapes from another world. The mist is melted away by the rising sun, thought snakes of fog still hide around some of the summits and cover others like a wave from the sea. It's only a ten hours ride this time. We gape at stone hills shaped like turtles, rabbit ears, cupcakes and pyramids. You end up wondering whether we're in a real part of Planet Earth or if this is all a strange, strage dream. It might as well be.
By the time the train reaches its destination Nampula all the toilets are filled with oddities and one has to climb over people sitting on top of potato and rice bags to get anywhere. So we just sit still, looking around, in a soft shell of numbness that has become our crust, an armour that both shields and exposes us to this mad world. As we get off the train we realize that of course we've been flattened. There is no other way of getting around in eastern and southeastern Africa but being as thin as possible, squeezing in and slipping through. We look to our left and know that the Indian Ocean is still a couple of hours away, and we remember everything we've been through. Traces of the Central, Tzara and Mozambiquan line appear on our skin like invisible tattoos, and our hearts warm up like suns. There we are again, pennies on the train track. Looking for a place we don't know.
thank you, for giving me a very touching mindtravel, I won't forget too fast.
ReplyDeleteThank you Anna, reading this makes me happy! So are you back from Mexico now? Are by any chance passing by Bergen anytime in the near future? Big hug!
ReplyDelete