Train Song

A final night's sleep on a mattress, sheer luxury, at the prison-like YWCA, after a final night's hard drinking at the nearby YMCA, which, while more expensive, seems to attract a finer class of travellers. Of course, having said that, as I pack my bags on my bicycle and make ready to leave, the gorgeous girls arrive, giggles echoing through the dingy halls of the YWCA's grimy canteen. Providence can't always be on your side.
I cycle to the TAZARA station, a monolithic edifice of the 1970's persuasion, totally awe-inspiring in its colonial aspirations for efficiency. Probably the most impressive thing I saw in Dar, it dwarfs the hundreds of people milling about around it, a real architectural masterpiece. Of course, probably only a tenth of the original building is used today for its intended purpose, and most of the building seems to have never been painted, cleaned or maintained. Like most of Africa's architectural relics, then.

I board the train, and to my delight, I'm sharing my six berth cabin with 5 Zambian teenagers, here in Dar for their school holidays. Next door are six Zambian girls, so fun times ahead! Cellphones blare terrible pop music, and high-school gossip is freely circulated,. In no time at all, I'm forced by my own standards of decency to vacate the cabin with the other chaps, leaving two lusty teenagers to grope, fondle and smooch to their hearts content. After dinner, some two hours later, I make my way back down the lurching corridor, as the train leaps about like a drunk snake on a trampoline. I slide my cabin door open, without knocking (silly me!) and reveal two teenagers-she, with her shirt pulled up, he-with a "fingers in the cookie jar" expression on his face, lipstick smeared over his face. A second of awkward stares, a quiet cough, and I close the door again. They're young, dumb and full of.. fun. I'm nearly 25, cranky, and I got "Dear John"'d this morning, so while those two fondle each other in my cabin, somewhere 5000km away, my own favourite girlie is getting fondled too, no doubt. It's in this sour and deeply contemplative mood that I repair to the bar, to hang out with Peter, the super cool barman, and try to spot giraffes and lions and elephants and things out the windows. We are, after all, jerking and jumping along the railroad through the Selous Park. It is, unfortunately, pitch dark outside.

Daylight and dawn brings amazing views from the bar window, mountains and hills rolling past the window. Fresh, warm air blows in the window, and present cicrcumstances notwithstanding, the romance of long distance train travel is undiminished. Sitting on a broken chair half resting on a beer crate, holding onto the table to avoid being thrown about by the teeth-clenching, often actually quite frightening jerks the train gives, like we're going over speedbumps on the rails. But the view is really spectacular, and the blue sky is still there, and its still hot, and birds fly wheel in its infinite depths, great eagles and hawks and things, and we fly over bridges so high you tighten your buttocks on the hard plastic seat, and before you know it, the police come bundling past with some nutter screaming bloody murder, because he wanted to jump off that really big bridge to his death, and the police disagree.

Next stop, Mbeya.