After years of living in Africa without a car I've mastered the local forms of public transportation. We have nice comfortable coach buses for long distances, but also crammed buses with chickens, luggage, and people everywhere. Minibuses cram between 19 and 30 people into a 15 passenger van and tend to have the most aggressive and frightening drivers.
To travel short distances on a main road hitchhiking is your
best bet. Although minibuses will take you they are not always there when you
need them. Hitchhiking in Zambia
is completely safe and normal. Everyone knows the rates minibuses charge to go
places and ask hitchhikers to pay the same amount to offset their fuel costs.
In Zambia
for going into the rural areas we use lorries or 3 ton flat bed trucks. Going
into the bush is always crowded and uncomfortable. The tricky part is you are
actually sitting above the sides of the truck a lot of the time and as the
roads are terrible you are bouncing around and leaning quite a bit. It's easy
to fall off.
In Congo
just about the only way to get places in the bush is with a motorcycle taxi. Congo
is filled with laterite clinging dust so after every ride we look like a new
race of orange people. With bugs flying into your face and dust obstructing
your vision it's not terribly pleasant, but it sure beats walking.
There are obvious downsides of public transportation, but
somehow I've come to genuinely enjoy it. I love meeting random people along the
way to where I'm going. There is a true sense of community in the back of those
lorries. I enjoy eaves dropping on conversations about politics, education, and life in general. I love the freedom of being able to go places without having a vehicle.
I take pleasure in being able to read while I'm traveling and not having to
drive. It's also usually cheaper which is always nice.
