A bumpy ride to Zimbabwe (1)

Travelling by road can be a nightmare and it is difficult for someone to be sure of arriving at his or her destination with the increase of road accidents. It remains true that uncertainty grips those who embark on long journeys as arriving in one piece is fast becoming a miracle.

Anxiety and fear of the unknown recently engulfed me as I embarked on such a long journey. I had to drive nearly 3,000 kilometres from Dar es Salaam to Harare on my way to rural Gutu to attend the funeral of one of my relatives. As regards to the nature of the visit, the urgency of the matter and after weighing all the options available, driving to Zimbabwe was the only tenable option.

The journey began around 5:30 pm in the evening despite concerns from friends and relatives on the dangers of driving during the night. Much of the concern was the Kitonga mountains range, where many people thought it wasn’t wise to drive through the escarpment at nightfall.

But time was not on our side and so we risked it. The journey started off smoothly and nothing out of this world happened until we came across the dreaded Kitonga Mountains. We had every reason to sigh a sign of relief as so many stories are told of how the place that is prone to accidents.

One problem, I believe that causes many people to perish like poisoned cockroaches on our roads is human error. Driving all the way at night was not as easy as I thought. On several occasions, I was bullied by heavy truck drivers, who are self imposed kings of the roads as their stubborn behaviour endangers the lives of other road users.

The truck drivers, in most cases don’t dim their lights and they refuse to give way to oncoming traffic as they drive their vehicles in the middle of the road. On several occasions, I was forced to swerve off the road to avoid a collision. Something should be done to address this anomaly if ever hopes of reducing accidents are to be upheld.

The state of the road from Dar es Salaam to Iringa is perfect. The recent rehabilitation of the road makes it easy for traffic to flow. The problem however arises soon after Iringa, where the road is pathetic. All hope, however, is not lost as that stretch is currently being rehabilitated and the exercise is slowing down traffic, as vehicles are forced onto detours where they take turns to pass.

After Mafinga, the road becomes user friendly up to Mbeya and Tunduma. We arrived at Tunduma border town the following day around 1:00 pm in the afternoon after driving throughout the night and a brief rest in Iringa.

The Tunduma border post was a hive of activity overcrowded with vehicles waiting to be cleared. Most of them had been driven all the way from the Dar es Salaam Port where they had been released on transit to other countries. We failed to get into the border area and had to park about a kilometre away while we were waiting for our turn to clear our vehicle and continue with the journey.

I believe something should be done to increase the speed of clearing vehicles on both Tanzania and Zambia sides of the border. The delay is an inconvenience to road users and business people. All the efforts by our clearing agencies to have our car jump the queue proved futile at first, though we succeeded later. After spending about four hours at the border, a breakthrough was realised and we were cleared.

It was around 5pm in the evening again when we resumed the journey on the Zambian side. We were only two, my wife and I and we had no choice but to take turns to drive. As we drove through Zambia, we were faced with another huge obstacle, the road itself. I had never driven on such a pathetic road.

The road from Tunduma to Mpika is a 400km stretch and is in a deplorable state. The Zambian government should do something because it is a major highway linking Tanzania to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Botswana and many other southern African states.

Vehicles imported from Japan to Zambia, DRC and Zimbabwe are driven through the road and many of these vehicles fail to reach their destination as a result of accidents. We witnessed the highest number of accidents along this stretch. I remember we came across not less than 15 accidents involving haulage trucks.

The road is full of potholes some too deep for comfort and vehicles have to negotiate their way at snail speed. These first four hundred kilometers were a nightmare for me as I was the one driving at that moment. Though I managed to pass through the area without any eventuality, I believe it was by the grace of God rather than my driving skills.

Instead of sleeping so that she can relieve me when tired, my wife turned into assistant driver or should I say pothole navigator, where she had to look so keenly onto the road and alert me when she spotted potholes that she thought I would miss.

It was a nasty experience that should not be repeated. The technique worked as we managed to go through the pothole infested area without plunging into one or deflating our tyres.

What surprised me, however, is that buses and some haulage trucks were flying over these potholes, bullying the drivers of smaller vehicles.

Another shocking thing is that Zambian drivers travelling at high speed and that left us wondering how they went past the potholes. I almost believed that the vehicle that I was driving was inferior as I could not drive it past the potholes comfortably.

But this came with a price as we had to stop to try and help some of the other drivers whose tyres would have been deflated or burst by potholes.

A journey that was supposed to take less than four hours ended up being completed in eight to 10 hours. The Zambian government should do something to improve the road as it is a major high way used by many land locked countries.

When the sun rose the following morning, we approached Kapiri Mposhi, just about 200 km from Lusaka, the Zambian capital. There wasn’t any major incident on the way as the road was better. The only problem was at Chirundu border post where we also had to clear the vehicle. And then we finally we entered Zimbabwe.