The wheels on the bus...
On Tuesday evening we set off from Mwanza on an overnight ferry to Bokoba, Tanzania. We had been assured that on the other side of Lake Victoria we would find a bus to Kigali, Rwanda. A bus that would wait if the ferry was delayed. This sounded a tad optimistic, but ever hopeful we set off. At about 5 in the morning I woke up to find the ferry docked and people disembarking. I poked a seriously disoriented Abby awake, jumped off the top of the three level bunk beds, scrambled to collect my things and marched off the ferry half asleep. We were just about clear of the dockyard when it occurred to me that not *everyone* was climbing off the boat, and maybe I should check where we were. A few minutes later, Abby and I slunk back into our cabin, much to the amusement of the ladies who had been chattering about the muzungos most of the trip.
When we did arrive in Bokoba a few hours later we found, not surprisingly, there was no direct bus to Kigali. We would first have to spend a day travelling to Kampala, Uganda, and then another day travelling down to Kigali. The daily bus to Kampala had already left, so we would have to wait a day in Bukoba before we could get going. Bokoba was a pretty sleepy town: we discovered the very slow internet connections, a New Rose cafe with good Tanzanian grub, and not much else.
scenes from Kampala
We stopped once on the long bus ride to Kampala at the Tanzania-Uganda border. We grabbed the chance to use the loo, and when we returned we asked the border guard which one was our bus. He pointed at it and said "I think it is even having mechanical problems" as if that were a good thing! Sure enough, the bus was having a tire changed, as the bumpy roads had bounced the previous one off.
Kampala was a chance to regroup, though after Tanzania everything seemed much more expensive! In the morning we set off again down to Kigali. The long Uganda-Rwanda border crossing, made even longer by a stupid muzungu who had her iPod stolen after she left it on the bus unattended, made us long for the tire change of the previous day.
the Rwandan countryside
After a full sunrise-sunset day on the bus we finally arrived in the capital of Rwanda and checked into our hotel. Though far more expensive than Tanzania or Uganda, the chance to soak in the bath was well worth it :)
2 comments:
Natasha,
You mention Tanzanian grub. What is the typical food of Tanzania?
Sam
Tanzanian grub is really heavy on carbohydrates (so is most African food, carbs fill you up cheaply and are more resistant to famines). A typical meal is rice or ugali (pounded maize which looks alot like the 'foo-foo' found in West Africa though tastes a bit different) with beans or fish or maybe mchicha (spinach). There is a really nice central/East African dish called Mtoke which is stewed plantain with other veggies. Most meals consist of a huge pile of carbs with a bit of juices from a stew on top, usually the stews are mostly vegetables with a bit of beef or chicken stock/bones/meat for flavour. Chipsi mayai is another Tanzanian favourite - a chip ommelette which is much tastier than it sounds (especially with pili-pili [chili] sauce)!
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