Our guidebook describes the Dar es Salaam to Mwanza bus journey as "hellish." The roads in "appalling condition." The only "sane way" to travel is by train.

Well, the train was booked up for a week and the Zuberi Brothers Bus Service was thrilled to sign us up for a trip they said would take about 24 hours.

"The roads were paved, the going fast."
As we rolled out of Dar es Salaam in the early morning and toward Tanzania's backwater capital of Dodoma, things seemed like we may have overestimated the difficulty of the journey. The roads were paved, the going fast, the bus full with five people across but with no one standing. Then we arrived in Dodoma.

Immediately the bus was jammed until not another person could be wedged into the aisle and as we set out it was over roads that indeed were "appalling." We bounced, shook and rocked until dark and then kept going.

"This caused us some concern."
At one point just before nightfall two men boarded the bus carrying AK47 machine guns concealed under LA Raiders jackets. This caused us some concern. But with so many people standing in the aisles, we figured there was plenty of padding between us and the automatic rifles. We devised a plan to escape from the window.

Turns out they were our guards for the ride through the remote, dark corner of Tanzania. In other places, they call this kinda thing "The Gun Run." Matt and I thought we'd then continue through the night to Mwanza, arriving in the morning. This is what we'd been told.

"The bus was staying for the night."
We arrived in a medium-sized town and sat for a few minutes. Nothing unusual. Then the bus was turned off. Still we didn't think anything was up since most people stayed on the bus. Just a dinner break, we thought. Our first clue should have been when the driver put his head on the steering wheel and went to sleep. We were later told the bus was staying for the night and would not continue until morning. The dozens of people still on the bus were sleeping there.

With this information we enlisted the help of Dennis, the Tanzanian policeman-cum-lawyer who spoke really good English to help us find a room to sleep in for a few hours. Nobody here speaks much English, so his help was invaluable. He quickly located a couple of very basic guestrooms and took off. This guesthouse was run by a very nice man in arab clothing who had one hand down his pants at all times. His assistant, it appeared, was a mute.

"We elected to sleep in shifts."
But our alarm clocks were locked under the bus. No way to wake up in time for departure. We elected to sleep in shifts. One would sit up and read while the other slept. Our accommodation in two rooms (for a total of four US dollars) made this quite easy.

At five am we took off on day two of our journey. Thirteen hours already behind us, we still had most of the day to go. This may be a good time to offer a visual aid for our environment. We called our mode of transport "The Muppet Bus." You may remember it from The Muppet Movie. Jammed shoulder-to-shoulder until every color and size of Muppet is oozing out the windows of an ancient broken down contraption hurtling down a cratered dirt road. And furry, red Animal growling and wildly beating his drums while riding on the roof. As we lumbered out from a stop, we imagined the theme to the Muppet Show winding up on a record player. Whaaaaamp bam bum bum buh bam bam.

"Miraculously we'd managed to remain in good spirits."
Around three in the afternoon, about 33 hours after it began, our bus journey ended at the Mwanza bus terminal. We were caked in dust, sleep deprived and utterly confused. But miraculously we'd managed to remain in relatively good spirits the whole time. The screaming babies, shouting adults and extreme togetherness hadn't cracked us.

Mwanza is on the southern end of Lake Victoria, so I guess this is kinda the very beginning of the Nile. Not much remarkable about the place otherwise. We'll move on tomorrow morning. We head for the Rwandan border and on to Parc de las Volcans... or however they spell it in French. It's where the mountain gorillas are. Think Gorillas in the Mist. It's where they shot it.