The time had come to say good-bye to Zanzibar. A taxi was supposed to pick me up at 8:30 am and drive me to the ferry port. As I had set my alarm clock accordingly, I was quite surprised when Saraphia came to wake me up at 6:30. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding about when I was supposed to go to the harbour. In the end, she and Pastor Ntele accompanied me to the ferry. I still had to buy my ticket (which surprisingly turned out 2 USD more expensive than it was to come here) and go through immigration. While we were waiting for the boat to come, it started to rain pretty bad. This was the most rain I had seen in months and although there was no real place for shelter, I somehow enjoyed it. At least it was warm and felt tropical. The ferry left had 10 am and I had to say good-bye to Saraphia and Pastor Ntele. Representing the whole Mwanakwerekwe congregation, I thanked them again for their support and generous hospitality throughout my stay which made my time in Zanzibar unforgettable. And if you want to learn more about this gorgeous island or consider it for your next vacations, you can refer to www.zanzibar.net.

The sea was quite rough and the ride bumpy. This time they showed the movie ‘Get Carter’ with Sylvester Stallone but it was pretty bad, so I decided to take a nap. After two hours, we landed at the ferry port of Dar Es Salaam. I was not exactly looking forward to this place again, therefore I was glad to share a taxi with Sean and Sarah, a young backpacking couple from Canada. They planned to stay in Dar for a couple more days and wanted to try and get a room at the YWCA hostel. As I still had some time left before I had to get to the train station, I joined them to have lunch at the YWCA. I had the opportunity to have a quick look at their room and it was very simple but at least clean and cheap. Also the food at their restaurant was good and very low priced. So if you ever need accommodation in Dar Es Salaam try the YWCA! It is conveniently located in the city centre and the people there are friendly.

When it was time to leave, I took a taxi to the Tazara train station and went back to the counter where I had bought my ticket last week. The clerk had told me I would have to come back for something on my day of departure. Since I had no idea what it was, I thought it must obviously be important, so I patiently queued behind five other people in front of the counter. When the queue had not moved on by a single person after 20 minutes, I started to wonder... and kept wondering for the following hour what was going on here. I couldn’t tell if it was the same man as last week but this one must have been awarded the slowest customer service clerk ever! I promise, it was like watching the Gijón Ayuntamiento officers in super slow-motion! But instead of not knowing how to operate a computer, these people don’t even have one and all sorts of papers, train tickets, and I-don’t-know-what are still hand-written. Everything took sooo long, it was incredible. Sometimes the clerk went into the office next door and wouldn’t come back for five minutes - God knows what he did in there. Funny enough I was the only (white) person in the waiting line that seemed to bother. But then again, I was the only person with 30 kg luggage on my back... In the end, I was so happy that I came here early enough and at least I didn’t need to worry for my train. When it finally happened to be my turn, the clerk seemed to be surprised that I already had my reservation and ticket. He actually asked me what I came back for! I tried very hard to keep smiling and reminded him that I was asked to come back. Oh, and then he remembered: All I had to do was to put my name on a list that was available to everybody NEXT to the queuing passengers! Indeed, I had seen people coming, walking straight up to the paper and fill in a few fields. And that was all I was supposed to do!!! I couldn’t believe I stood in line for so long... for nothing!

When I finally passed the ticket control, I was sent to wait in the waiting lounge. At least I could take off my backpack here! And I met Frank, a Dutch medical student on his way to start an internship in a hospital in Southern Tanzania. The waiting room was full of people and yet I was happy to have the privilege to wait inside the first class lounge instead of outside in the station as most of the other passengers. The station was crowded and a lot of people did not even have a chair, so they sat on the ground amongst their bags, luggage carts and children. Around 4 pm we were finally allowed to board the train. Not especially inspiring confidence from the outside, I must admit that I was surprised about the interior of the train. It was generally clean and neat. As I had booked first class to ensure I would have enough room for my luggage, I shared my compartment with three other women: Melanie was English and in her late thirties. She had lived in Mozambique for two years and now travelled around East and Southern Africa before returning home to Europe. Dorothy was a corpulent African grandmother, native from Zambia where she returned to after some shopping in Tanzania. Also returning to Zambia was Gertrud, 42 years old and mother of five. Her husband was on the train as well but had to stay in one of the men’s compartments a little further down the corridor. Our compartment comprised four “beds”, two on each side and arranged as in European trains. (Actually, I think this was an old French train that had been sorted out after X years service in Europe.) Given the age of my fellow passengers, I chose to take one of the upper beds. The weird thing was that they were fixed quite high up on the wall but there was no ladder or step to help you climb up. Melanie and I sometimes had a tough time (but a lot of fun) to get into our beds and after this train ride I had a huge hole in my pyjama pants right at the spot where you least want to have one – and it came from trying to lift up my leg that high!

The train finally departed at 4:30 pm, roughly 40 minutes behind schedule. After getting to know the others inside our compartment, I spent some time staring out of the window to see the Tanzanian landscape passing by. Later Melanie and I went for dinner in the train’s restaurant. The food onboard was probably the worst about this train ride: It was eatable but not exactly delicious and the menu wouldn’t change over the next two days. When I went to bed, I was surprised about its comfort and fell asleep pretty quickly. I didn’t know it yet but the following 42 hours would be part of the most relaxing experiences of my whole Africa trip.