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TANZANIA
03/07/2004 |
Hitch-hiking in Kenya and Tanzania |
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By now I have already covered about 2000 km by hitch-hiking in Kenya and Tanzania. Roughly saying, the speed and the style of such travelling is similar to the European countries. Sometimes you have to wait 1 hours, but in other times you get a car in less than 5 minutes. The main problem – low traffic on the road. Since local people cannot afford to buy a car, they are mostly using buses, which passes every 5-10 minutes, and surprisingly all of them are completely full.
That is true, that sometimes you need to wait for quite long in order to get a ride, but once you have it, because of the low traffic you will be driven 90 km/h or even faster
In Kenya almost half of the route you are travelling in you will find full of pitholes and curly road, another part will be relatively good. In the North and North-East of Tanzania roads have very good quality.
The most annoying on the roads in Kenya and Tanzania are the small hills on the roads through the villages, which reduce the speed of the cars passing the area crowded by people.
By the way, the word "hitch-hiking" is hardly known among the people in these countries. More easier is to explain that “I am travelling by lifting”.
Beside the small private cars, which are mostly Land Cruisers, Land Rovers and similar, you will also get trucks, which most often already have 2-3 people inside the cabin.
All the matatus in Kenya and dala dalas in Tanzania (i.e. mini buses) will try to signal you in order to get you on the board. So, make sure that you do not pay attention to them, otherwise they will stop and disturb your hitch-hiking.
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