It's a Mad, Mad World

Our ride from Dar es Salaam to Julius Nyerere International Airport outside the city limits was an excellent example of what transportation in a 3rd world country can be like.  The trip is normally a 30min journey and follows the aptly named Julius K Nyerere Road.  This is a multi-lane, divided highway with occasional stoplight intersections and many dalla-dalla pullouts along the route.  We expected our 8pm journey to be quick as we made our way out of town into the unlit industrial outskirts, but soon found out otherwise.  The 3 lanes heading out of town suddenly became jammed with cars, trucks, and overstuffed dalla-dallas.  The reason for there being a jam out here, we found out later, was some sort of police checkpoint at one of the intersections ahead.  Our driver, perhaps in his own impatience or perhaps realizing we did have a flight we needed to catch, steered onto the potholed shoulder and began to pass the stationary mess. A short distance later he exited onto a little access road leading to the industrial estate.  We carried on there, next to large, whitewashed concrete buildings, with other cars and we moved at a good pace parallel to the main highway.  But this road, too, became jammed with cars and we sat for a while without moving again.  Between the road we were on and the main road to the airport, there is an elevated sidewalk.  Pedestrians who cannot afford their own transportation still have to get from A to B, and this sidewalk keeps them off the road and out of harm's way.  A steep, dirty bank was all that kept drivers from rolling up and onto the sidewalk and utilizing the open space.  After our driver observed one SUV charging up the bank and onto the sidewalk, he decided we would follow in our little Corolla.  We had a good laugh as we motored along the elevated sidewalk, pedestrians dodging when they appeared in our headlights.  Progress was good... until we encountered the police checkpoint.  Not wanting to be caught on the sidewalk, our driver made a 5-point U-turn and headed back the way we had come.  This time we weren't just encountering pedestrians, but a line of cars who had decided to follow our lead.  It was a tight squeeze getting past everyone, back to the short access road we had first used and onto the jammed Julius K Nyerere Road again.  This time, our driver decided to rip along the shoulder, braking quickly to avoid plunging into the deepest potholes and edging back onto the pavement.between gaps in cars where necessary. It was a hair-raising experience but we arrived in one piece at the airport an hour later.  Thankfully, Swiss Air let us check in even though we were past their advertised cut-off time.