Having not had the best nights sleep, we woke at 4:30am to get the bikes loaded and ready to head to the bus station. By 5:15am we were on our way, in the dark, through the unlit Kondoa streets. The journey only took a few minutes and we soon arrived at the equally unlit bus terminal. The first two things that we encountered were a closed ticket office and a bus with no roof rack. Assuming that we were looking at the right bus where were we supposed to put our bikes?!
Showing our tickets to the man at the front of the bus he gestured for us to get on, I obviously gestured towards our bicycles and luggage. Some shouting later and it became clear that the bikes were to go in the lockers underneath. We can't say we were particularly pleased about that as we had visions of them being thrown around the hold on the bumpy road. To make matters worse they wouldn't fit where they wanted to put them. Eventually I started to remove the wheels, nearly loosing one of the wheel skewer nuts in the process. By the light of a feeble torch we got the bikes small enough to fit and had to step back and hope that they put them in with some degree of care. Unfortunately both bikes wouldn't fit in the back locker, so Debs' bike was placed in the front lockers on its own. I was even more concerned about this, as at least mine was surrounded by our bags. Debs meanwhile was just placed in the middle of a large empty cargo hold. The small tarpaulin they placed underneath may help a little, but we had to hope it didn't move around too much!
6am arrived and remarkably the bus left on time. We had visions of still being sat on it in the bus station at 7am. I guess we will never know how bad the road would have been to ride on, but judging by the violent lurching and banging of the bus as we sped along, we would say not great. As the sun started to rise we were treated to a beautiful red sky, which momentarily took our minds off the buses attempts to rearrange our internal organs! With every bang and bump I tried to put my mind off thinking of our bikes bouncing up and down in the hold.
Sitting relatively comfortably in our seats we began to wonder when a bus was deemed full in Africa. At every small village, sometimes just the side of the road, we stopped to pick up more people. One lady even boarded with a live rooster under her arm and then proceeded to squeeze her way past everyone, while the rooster struggled in her grip.
We wondered whether there would be a so called 'comfort break' on the bus and can safely report that the answer is no. What seems to happen is that as soon as the bus stops to pick up passengers anyone desperate for the toilet leaps off and heads into the bush. Assuming that enough people take their chance and join the first, the bus driver doesn't drive off leaving the passenger trying to rearrange his or her clothing as they chase after the departing bus. We quite wisely decided to hold it, I suspect the chance to watch a 'mzungu' (white person) chasing after the bus would be too good for the driver to miss!
After only 4 hours, we had been told 6 hours, the bus pulled into the Dodoma bus station. With fingers crossed and a certain amount of trepidation we set about unloading the bikes. Somewhat miraculously the bikes and luggage, aside from being filthy, appear to have escaped unscathed. With a small crowd watching we reassembled the bikes got loaded and headed off in search of a guest-house. Dodoma may be the nation's capitol, but today at least it seemed like a quiet, sleepy town. The streets are wide and well sign-posted and there was little traffic. If the 'Lonely Planet' hadn't marked the hotel that we intended to stay in on the wrong place on the map we would have ridden straight there. With a little help we doubled back on ourselves and arrived outside the 'Cana Lodge Hotel'. The hotel is by far the nicest place we have stayed in Tanzania, except our tent of course! We have a large room, with a comfortable bed, plus hot water from the taps! No more cold showers for a couple of days at least. What has made us laugh however, is the fact that the hotel security man made us fill in the vehicle log book and we have been given a pass that we have to show to take our bikes off the site. Good for security, but it made filling in the vehicle registration section a little tricky.
Having got settled in we had a good lunch in the hotel restaurant and then wandered back to the bus station to enquire about taking another bus to Iringa. We have decided that it is just going to be too difficult to get supplies and water along the road. With an average speed of just 7km/h it is going to take an awfully long time to cover the 260km to Iringa! Unfortunately the ticket man wasn't in his office, but that didn't stop us having a laugh with some of his helpers/passengers. After finding out we were from England, Queen Elizabeth and David Beckham were mentioned and we were then introduced to the black David Beckham. Your guess is as good as ours as to who he was, but it caused much hilarity. Eventually we were told to come back this evening or tomorrow morning and there would be no problem getting tickets. Waving goodbye we headed back to the hotel, so far it looks like we are going to like our short break in Dodoma.
We didn't feel like exploring too much last night, so we returned to the hotel restaurant. Aside from a lengthy wait, the food was once again very good and above all really cheap. A few beers rounded off what has been a tiring but good day.
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