Top ten worst bus trips

A bad bus trip has a few different factors which need to be considered in ranking it:

  • Length:  We have been fortunate in avoiding really long overnight trips.  Anything nine hours or over, even on the most comfortable bus, is draining.  Long trips in uncomfortable buses rank worse.
  • Noise:  It is remarkable the number of bus trips that involve ear splitting music or movies.  When it can be blocked out this isn’t a high ranking factor but some experiences (such as the first trip on this list) involve such horrendous noise that it must be accounted for.
  • Discomfort:  Hard seats, no-airconditioning, fellow passengers jammed against you, enough said.
  • Near death experience: Guarantees a spot on this list.
  1. The trip is in Argentina from Cordoba to Salta.  It took 12 hours rather than the 7 we expected.  Comfortable seats but not much food.  Loud movies blasted the entire time including Unthinkable, a very graphic film about torture.  It set the mood.
  2. From Kumasi to Accra.  You would think that the road connecting the Ghanaian capital to an inland city of a million people would be pretty decent.  Not so.  There was a huge stretch of potholed dirt which our overloaded bus had to go over at walking speed.  Add no air-conditioning and a preacher to the mix and you have a unique twist on hell.
  3. Accra to Takoradi.  Ghana does not have a winning bus system.  This government run bus broke down three times and we were left sitting and sweltering in the sun for long periods.
  4. Almost dying rates highly in the worst bus journey ranking system.  This bus to the convent north of Lushoto in Tanzania was the most dangerous journey yet.  It was like driving up a creek bed running again thanks to torrential rain with sheer drops on each side and a suicidal driver at the wheel.
  5. Not strictly speaking a bus, but the journey in a bush taxi from Abomey to Cotonou in Benin was going fine until they stuck a fourth person in the back with us.  Numb bum went into overdrive.
  6. Again, not stictly speaking a bus, but the two hour trip by dalla-dalla to Matemwe beach on Zanzibar was a shocker.  Literally no room to move in the back of a reconfigured truck.
  7. Dar es Salaam to Lushoto in Tanzania.  A trip that should have taken 5 hours went to about 8.  We were sitting above the engine block separated by a thin sheet of metal which got very hot.  Minimal leg room. Baby cockroach sightings happened periodically – I guess we should be grateful they weren’t adults.
  8. Dar es Salaam to Mikumi in Tanzania.  Not extraordinarily bad but just tiny seats for five hours.  The bus is configured with two seats on one side and three on the other.  They really jam them in.
  9. Omaha to Chicago.  Murrays in the US have no leg room whatsoever.  This trip had the added excited of a torrential downpour which caused most of the traffic to pull over.  Not us.  We barrelled through as lightning touched the ground either side.
  10. On pure length the 13.5 hour trip from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania gets up there.  It was a comfortable bus and the journey was fine apart from breaking down once and getting stuck in traffic on the highway.  It was a not so fond farewell to African bus trips for the time being.