Racheal

I was lucky. The First Class compartment for four (female only) turned out to have only two occupants booked the whole way from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia – all 1860 km of it. Not only would we travel in comparatively spacious luxury, but it soon turned out that I had won myself the perfect travelling companion. Racheal, a young Zambian woman living in Dar, has done the journey a number of times and actually works for Tazara. She knows all about the train and the journey. Within minutes of leaving the city, she shed her city girl image, wrapped herself into a chitenge (sarong) and a headscarf and became an African woman on safari. We shared my giant bag of sweets and her small fat yellow bananas and she became my guide to the intricacies of life along the tracks.

“There used to be four services a week, now there are only two,” she said. “Everyone takes the bus because it is faster, but it is dangerous, there are so many accidents. There are two trains, one run by Tanzania and one by the Zambians. This is the Tanzanian one. It will go down on Tuesday as the Express train and return on Friday as the stopping service.” I ask if there is any other difference.

“No difference, just one is Tanzanian and one Zambian.”

I’d been warned to bring food and unsure there was going to be anything at all came armed with portable food that would survive the journey – digestive biscuits, Philadelphia cheese (it comes in a plastic pot), cashew nuts, cartons of fruit juice and plenty of water. But there was food – chicken, fish or beef was offered, with rice or chips. Rachel took the rice, and produced her own chicken, with a long explanation, which I never really totally understood, about there being two sorts of chicken in Tanzania and this being the wrong sort. The flavour was fine but it had run a marathon or two in its life.

At Mbeya, she started a brisk trade in potatoes and carrots and huge sacks were heaved into our compartment and stored under the bed.

“How will you get them to Lusaka?” I asked. “I am meeting a friend in Kapiri,” she replied, “they are for her. Potatoes from here are very good and they are very expensive in Zambia.” And she went back to her book, When Jesus Wins Your Husband’s Heart.

A growing cluster of tiny children gathered under the window of the compartment at one stop, almost chanting ‘Kopo, Kopo, Kopo’ in an increasingly desperate chorus. “They are asking for plastic water bottles,” she explained, coming back in as the noise drilled through my skull, ‘they use them in the slums.” Between us we mustered three to give them but it was nothing like enough and the sound will haunt me forever.

At the border she ran a commentary on the flood of people crossing over to shop for cheap goods to sell – anything from plastic bowls and sandals to beer and crates of Coca Cola – and pointed out the side deals going on to get things past the police and onto the train. It may be freight that pays for the line, but even in third class, it is trade that keeps it alive.

Without Rachel, I would have watched and taken pictures and enjoyed myself immensely on my Tazara journey. Thanks to her, I understood a tiny glimpse of a different side of Africa.

The Tazara runs twice a week, leaving Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Kapiri Mposhi on Tuesdays and Fridays; the Tuesday train is the faster express service. To book in Dar, from abroad, the easiest way is to use a tour operator. I used Wild Thing Safaris – www.wildthingsafaris.com. Cost inc. commission US$100. In Zambia, contact Lewis Kaluba at Tazara; email: lewiskaluba@yahoo.com; tel: 00-260-966-747 725. As you are booking direct, it will be cheaper.

Kenya Time – on the Jambo Express DeLux

Nairobi to Mombasa by train

A hollow whistle, a sigh, clank, wheeze, creak, squeak, clack, squeak, clackety-clack and the train finally groans back into life. It is 4.43am on the blackest night imaginable somewhere in the middle of the African bush, between Nairobi and Mombasa. At about 10.30pm, less than 4hrs after leaving Nairobi and well under a third of the way into our extremely leisurely journey, we came to a total standstill behind a derailed freight train. The party mood on board is forgiving. A couple got off and went up to watch the activity at the crash site, getting locked off the train by their well-oiled cabin mates, ending up prowling the windows begging to be let back on. Most people are happy because it means we will be travelling through Tsavo National Park in daylight offering far better chances of spotting wildlife. It is hard to imagine the same reaction back in Britain where impatient commuters demand refunds if the trains are 10 minutes overdue.

I wish I could post this now, but of course, even my mobile dongle is way out of reach of any server. Instead, there is just the glow of the keyboard, the infinity of the African night sky, and clack of the train wheels to rock me to sleep for what little remains of the night in my first class sleeper on the Jambo Express Delux.

Update. It’s now 11.30am and we are in the middle of the Tsavo National Park, vast acreage of red dust and grey scrub with tiny glimmerings of vivid green shoots, the instant results of the first rains in nearly three years. Wildlife count so far – one large indeterminate bird, one dead zebra and three live ones, but I have hopes. The train captain has just been round to say we will make it to the Mombasa area by 4pm (we were due in at 8.30am) but when I say area, I don’t mean station – we are ending our journey at Mazeras on the outskirts of the city as, apparently “a second train has capsized, and this time it is more serious.” Two derailments in one night on one line is quite a track record.