24th - Going to Kampala

People drive in the left side of the road in Tanzania.

This part of my trip deserves its own post. Not because of the flights (Kilimanjaro -> Nairobi, waiting 3 hours and then Nairobi -> Entebbe), the taxi drive to the hotel or the waiting game at the airport. Not because of the mentioned, but because of the first five minutes from leaving the lodge in Arusha. The taxi picked me up at 0600, and when leaving the gravel road where the lodge was located and going onto the paved road, it happened. Ever since I arrived in Africa I have been surprised how crazy people drive without any accidents happening. People drive aggressively, but not angrily, which might be part of the reason why things are the way they are.

Anyway, leaving the gravel road in darkness, the driver looks very briefly to the right, after which he looks to the left, and not seeing anyone, he begins pulling out and turning to the right. At that moment a very dark shadow enters my vision from the right – a guy on a bicycle. He got bigger and bigger, and I thought it was my depth of vision screwing with me (very early, and not much sleep as we were staying quite late at the bar last night to say our goodbyes with the group) until I heard a loud thunk. What did the driver do? Still looking left, he didn’t brake, he actually tried to speed up. This resulted in that the poor biker went up on the hood, across the windscreen and over and down on the ground down behind me on the left. The driver swore, completed his turn, and then hesitated just long enough for me to suspect that he would have continued if I hadn’t been there. Fortunately he pulled over and left the car – and checked the front first. He then went over to the biker, and came back a couple of minutes later, which felt like hours. He drove on and when asked he said that the biker was fine. Maybe he was, but he could just as well have given him a bunch of money so that he’d keep his mouth shut or something. Or just given him a whack on the head to get him to stop complaining for all that I know. Fun morning!

The really fun part is that 5 minutes later he almost pulled off the same stunt again – the biker did stop by himself this time so nothing happened, all while my driver was looking to the left.