For some reason, my day of travel coincided with a time that students from all Kenyan Secondary boarding Schools were travelling to or back from school. Am not sure. But I have since learnt to avoid such days. This is how I ended up in the wrong town a few hundred kilometres from my destination.

I was standing at the City centre pondering my next action after discovering that the usual Nissan matatus were all taken, when one sly agent told me how the infamous Machakos Bus Station was overflowing with buses going the same place. It's a place I have always avoided because it has a reputation of passengers being deceived into giving their luggage for assistance and losing them. I thought I was safe since I did not carry much. I refused to let him "help". He walked so fast that at one point, I tripped and fell and sat down on the pavement, still holding onto my bag. The signs of bad luck were just everywhere! But I was determined to travel that day, even paid the unusually high fare for a bus.

I was travelling from Nairobi to town X, so the agent showed me to an almost full bus and told me to pay some man who issued the tickets. I asked him if he was sure the bus was going to my town X. All the people around him turned at me in a somewhat harsh response. A few told my agent, the one who brought me, to let me go if I wasn't interested in travelling. So I paid the bus fare because I was determined to travel. Part of the harsh response also came from the fact that I doubted there was space inside. I later discovered I occupied one of the seats exclusively reserved for the extra driver and conductors.

From my time of boarding to the bus starting the journey, almost an hour had passed. It takes three hours from Nairobi to the first stop, then three more hours to my destination. A 30 minutes distance from the first stop, the bus made an unusual turn that definitely did not lead to my destination. I knew I was doomed. I had also learnt, by that time, that no other passenger in that bus was heading my way. None of the people I had talked to before boarding the bus came with it. So the conductors looked at me with a face when I asked them what happened of my destination.

I waited for the next town and alighted, in protest, and out of necessity because it was a few minutes to 7.00 pm and they suggested dropping me at a stage that was about an hour away from my destination. The problem is that it would take them four hours of more to get to it. And its a place with an unholy reputation. I found a place to sleep and continued with the harrowing journey the next day.

I passed one of those buses along the road a few days back. It was stranded on the road. Likely mechanical problem. I had this evil smile rise from inside me. I still have the receipt. Am shocked I did not post it on twitter ranting about their criminal services. Notice it never had a clear destination written on it?

Oya sorry

KingEbukasBlog:
Oya sorry

he he