Traveling across the USA by train is an unique way to see and experience the variety and scale of the country. We broke up the journey, stretching it into a 17 day trip in August / September 2004, by stopping at Glacier National Park for five days and visiting Chicago before reaching New York City.
To begin this cross country journey, we went north by train to Oregon, where we had to resort to taking a replacement bus to meet our connecting train that left Portland before we were due to arrive. Once on the next train east, we made our way toward Glacier National Park.
Lima was our first stop on our three week journey to Peru. We spent time there both at the beginning and the end of our trip. Much of our time was spent walking around the large city and seeing the numerous plazas and cathedrals.
Our time in Machu Picchu consisted of a day trip from Cuzco. After the early morning four hour train trip, we spent several hours at the site, viewng it from above, as well as walking through the various structures of the lost city.
We are now in route from South Africa to Namibia (about 4 hours into a 21-hour bus trip). It is a fairly comfortable vehicle with 2 stories, air-conditioning, a bathroom and fairly frequent stops to stretch one’s legs.
We reached Windhoek, Namibia, the capital city, via a 21 hour bus ride from Cape Town. Our major activity in Namibia was a four day visit to Etosha National Park, in the northern part of the country.
We are currently crossing the Kalahari Desert. The distance from Windhoek, Namibia to Maun, Botswana is 896 km and will take nine hours.
To get to Zambia, we crossed the Zambezi River by public ferry and walked across the border.
As I write this, we are nearing the end of our journey on the Tazara train from Kapiri Mposhi (K.M.), Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Our train departed two days ago at 3:10pm. The total journey is 1860km (a little more than 1100 miles).
We made our way to Delhi via a public bus, which took about four hours. We stayed at a quiet hotel in between Old and New Delhi.
