Day 55 – Why did we think the train would be any different?

Mbeya - Mbeya Railway Station (lying/sitting on our cases)

We were told to be at the train for 2.00pm for a 3:30pm departure ….. to play it safe we arrived around 1:00pm, to be greeted by a notice saying that the train was delayed until 8.00pm!

We took a taxi back into town and had some lunch, staying at the restaurant until it closed around 4:45pm. Back at the train station the notice had been changed – it said something like “The train has been delayed until 02.30 (8am) – sorry for the inconvenience”! So what time was it? M checked at the counter – it was 2:30am – so another taxi back to town to our hotel for drinks and dinner followed by loitering in the foyer. There’s not much else to do in Mbeya ….. it’s not as if we could go to the cinema or something!

We ventured back to the station around 11pm worried about what we’d find ….. this time we told our taxi driver to wait while we checked. The result, still 2.30am. There were no seats available, but for some reason there was plenty of open space up one end of the station. We soon found out why ….. the urine smell coming from the toilets was so strong it created a sleep-proof barrier!

We sat on our cases near the benches and waited for 2.30am, but of course the train didn’t show, so we tried to snatch whatever sleep we could, while trying to block out the TV which was showing Tanzanian Parliament in very loud Swahili, and hoping that the train would turn up any minute to rescue us …….