Bus journey from hell to Malawi

The portents for the journey from Dar es Salaam to Mzuzu, Malawi, were never good. Firstly, two separate rip off merchants lured us into their tour offices trying to both convince us they were agents for the relevant bus company and to lighten the load of our wallets for the tickets. The stench of a dodgy deal led us to call their bluff by letting them write out the clearly dodgy tickets but never turn up with the money.

After escaping the wheelers and dealers, we literally scoured the city for the elusive office of the actual operating company that runs this route. It was only after recruiting the help of a local in exchange for a bottle of pop that we managed to track down Taqwa Buses. It turned out that Taqwa themselves weren't going to be running the next day so they directed us to their sister company, the dubious sounding 'Mohammed Buses'. Experience has led us to fear any buses with even 'In God we trust' plastered across the back, so the fact that the Holy Prophet was actually the name sake for the whole company made us shake in our boots. Despite our fear we booked our tickets for the hellishly early 4.30 departure time and headed back to get some zzzzs in.

Everytime we climb aboard yet another bus we wonder what's in store for us. A luxury armchair furnished coach with drinks and movies, or a collapsing hulk of metal with bamboo sticks for axels? Mohammed Bus was painted such a bright yellow (or was it the glow of the devout?) that you couldn't actually look at the outside of the bus for long enough to work out what kind of condition it was in but once inside at 4.30 the next day we got a fair idea of the kind of shower that was taking us south.

None of the windows were smashed and the seats were ok; spacious and even fitted with working seat belts. It was the aisle that bothered us, or rather lack of. A huge amount of cargo was being transported over the border (quite what we didn't know, probably goats or chickens, although these usually get a seat to themselves) and was stuffed into all the available room in the luggage compartments down below. What couldn't fit was piled high behind the back seats, obscuring all rear view of the road and omitting a rather stale smell. As a result, the passengers' luggage was piled three cases deep down the aisle. To get to your seat you had to climb over the bags or use the arm rests as stepping stones. We watched as passenger after passenger squashed our bags into oblivion. What if the travel scrabble broke? I was only 2 games behind overtaking Chris for the first time since Ethiopia!

Once we'd managed to tear our minds away from quite how dangerously overloaded the bus was, and its bald tyres, the first five hours of the journey weren't too bad. In fact, the smoothness of the journey must have disarmed the driver as he got back on the bus after a toilet stop (always amusing as all the passengers pile off and disappear into the bushes to pee - bums everywhere) and decided to up the pace a bit. No more than 10 minutes into his new-found Formula 1 racing style we took a corner far too fast and admidst the screech of tyres and the smell of burning rubber there came an enormous bang.

We pulled over to the side of the road and the crew piled off to take a look under the bus. I'm not sure what had bust but it was something to do with the brakes. The brakes? If that's all it was then we would be on our way again in no time as they're rarely used in a journey anyway.

Two hours later we were still there. It was just like being on the Tube as we all just sat there whilst the driver and mechanic (one on every Mohammed Bus apparently - never a good sign) declined to give us any indication of what was happening and how long we might be there. We finally got on the road about three hours later. It would have been a bit sooner but Chris and I had decided to go on a bit of a walk in search of some baboons we had spotted and had to be called back.

Two hours later we broke down again. Apparently the bit of blue tac that had been used to make the repairs was not strong enough and we were back to square one. Someone must have had some Sellotape though as we were back on the road again a couple of hours later. But, alas, the tape must have melted in the heat as we broke down yet AGAIN!

At about the time we should have been crossing the border, but still 300 miles away, we pulled in for a fourth time. We had pulled up alongside another Mohammed Bus which, it turned out, had been there for two days waiting for a fellow holy coach to pass! Whilst our bus was managing to get another 100 miles or so before breaking down again, theirs really had passed on to the next life. Before we knew it, all the passengers of the other bus were piling onto our bus, luggage and all. There was now a throng of people filling the aisle, as well as our luggage. The weird thing was that our bus was being repaired again and we wouldn't be ready for another two hours so we couldn't understand why the staff had literally rammed the new victims onto the bus when they could have sat on their own until we were ready to rattle off again!

And to make matters worse my bladder was about to burst. For almost one hour I sat there wondering whether I should climb out the window or somehow scramble over the heads of the passengers. Someone else must have been feeling the same and took the lead down towards the front of the bus. It was like some sort of assault course and we literally had to climb over the head rests of the seat to get out. Worse still, I had a widening hole in the crutch of my trousers. Nice!

Once I reached the very front of the bus the full horror of the overloading nearly shot me into the upper stratosphere. Not only were there people and luggage literally crammed in to every available space, I now saw that luggage was piled up against the front windscreen, with just a small space for the driver to see out of.

That was it! I marched to the back of the bus, where the staff from both buses were repairing our vehicle yet again, and demanded to speak to the 'officials', launching into a full lecture about how important it was to at least communicate with the passengers when things went wrong, about what a death trap the bus was, how overloaded it had been before we picked up another bus load of passengers and how the driver must driver VERY VERY slowly until we dropped the new people off at the border. Clambering back to my seat again over people's heads the transformation into Speakers Corner tyrant must have finally been complete. Looking down (literally I mean) on everyone I told them how they had to make an official complaint about the whole shenannigans and how companies would never improve if they didn't). All I got was sheepish grins and nervous laugher. Crazy mzungu!

The only option for beating the fear that had descended on us about our eight-wheeled heaven express was to sleep. When we awoke we were at the border but, at 2am it was closed. We fInally crossed into Malawi at about 7am the next morning, only a blissful 6 hours away from our destination, Mzuzu - that's if the bus didn't break down again.

The saga wasn't over yet though. When we got to customs every single item on the bus was unloaded. We were disappointed to see that the cargo which had forced all our luggage upstairs was simply tonnes and tonnes of empty sacks. Surely they had these in Malawi! A few hundred wasps had even stowed away underneath and I bet they regretted that decision.

Every bag had to be searched meticulously and the owners required to pay any import tax. So we sat there. And we sat there. And we sat there. And after 7 hours in customs we were still sitting there and starting to consider converting to Islam ourselves just to see if we could have a direct word with Allah about getting Mohammed back on the road.

Just considerng conversion must have helped as the man I had berated the night before must have started to feel genuinely sorry for us as we sat there wasting away. He came over to us and suggested that he paid for us to get a cab to the nearest town and then a minibus from there to Mzuzu. Allahu Akbar!

36 hours after setting off on a 16 hour journey we finally made it!  What's more, we were in time for kick off in the first world cup game. We have three weeks before our next mammoth journey across the continent to Nambia via Vic Falls  - just about enough time for the circulation to return to our legs and our bums to reinflate!