Planes, Trains and Automobiles 1 & 2

Planes, Trains and Automobiles 1
I’m on the bus to Mombasa, and surprise surprise, we are back to normalcy, a world where fares are marked and you pay what you see. No negotiation required. On the bus to Kabale, every passenger paid a different price. Your price depended on your begotiation skills. My skills were fair so I paid 18,000 Uganda shillings. The woman next to me was more efficient so she paid 15 thousand. In Mbarara, two hours from our destination, they unceremoniously put us all out and into a matatu. I was upset and launched my angry tirade against the conductor.
‘Kondukta’, I complained in my best East African accent, ‘you people are dishonest! You overcharge me to my destination, now instead of taking me there, you put me into a taxi and leave me!’
‘Madam’ the conductor said, ‘we will pay for the taxi, but you were lucky! Look!’ he showed me the other tickets, ‘You were not overcharged! Look! All these people paid more than you!’

Planes, Trains and Automobiles 2
Another surprise in Nairobi, buses with seatbelts, air-conditioning and a seating plan!

Planes are old news for me. I don’t care about what’s outside the window. Except for my flights over the Sahara – by day and by night, the landscape is normally not that exciting. On buses though I give up the aisle and scramble to the window to look at the changing landscape.
My window seats have afforded me views of
Giraffes in Arusha, monkeys and baboons in Uganda and Kenya, gazelles in Swaziland, endless bucks while driving through a national park in Uganda, as well as the changing landscape breathtakingly spectacular mountain views along the way to Kissoro and Kabale near Rwanda, prehistoric trees along the coast in Kenya, evidence of the Rift Valley in Tanzania, Kenya and even Uganda, and finally the varied cultures expressed through changes in architecture and even clothing on the line outside.
For me it’s not the destination, but the journey that is exciting.