An African Train Ride

Last week, Adam and I decided to take the train to visit Niassia province.  We prepared ourselves for the 12 hour ride from Nampula City to Cuamba, a city in Niassa province where the train ends and, conveniently, Zackaria, a volunteer from our group, lives. 

Adam on the nice train

The train has both second and third class tickets; third class they cram in way too many people, so we opted for the second class tickets which guarantee no more than 6 people in a room/compartment.  There are two trains which alternate going to or from Nampula, the nice one and the not so nice one.  Fortunately on the way there, we got the nice train (not so lucky on the way back, though).  In second class, the nice train has 6 beds, three on each wall for individuals to have their own space to lie down and rest.  We got even luckier as there were only three of us in our room, so we didn’t even need to put up the other beds.  (The not so nice train only has two beds which serve as benches for sitting on.)  The bathroom on the train was a metal toilet that simply had a hole all the way through the floor so that you just left your mark on the tracks below.  Gross yes, requires some balancing skills, but better than nothing.

Like an American train, this train makes many stops along the way, but it goes so so slow, reaching a maximum velocity of about 30mph.  It’s a beautiful ride through the landscapes of Mozambique, but you can imagine it gets pretty hot and 12 hours is a long time to be stuck on a swaying, rocking train.  Though it is much more comfortable than a chapa! 

Along the way, the train stops and people rush up to the windows to sell various items like bread, bags of tomatoes, onions, beans, and sodas.  If you’re brave, you can try the street food like fried chicken, goat meat, hard-boiled eggs, cashews, fried potatoes or bags of cabbage salad.

View from the train

At about hour 10 of our ride, we looked out the window to see the greatest number of mangos I have ever seen in my life, then that number multiplied by about 1000.  It is beginning to be mango season here, but neither I nor Adam was prepared for the ridiculous amount of mangos this little village was trying to sell.  Hundreds of people were walking around with buckets filled with over 100 mangos balanced on their heads, selling the entire bucket for a mere 10mts!  I don’t even know what one does with that many mangos!  It was incredible.

Finally, we made it to Cuamba around 5pm, sore, achy, and so happy to finally get off the train.  It was a cool thing to do once, but not something I need to do again anytime soon.