04/04/19-10/04/18
Countries: Rwanda and Tanzania
Distance: 155 km / 96 mi
Elevation: 1,955 m / 6,414 ft
Hitchhike: 19 km / 12 mi
2x Buses: 901 km / 560 mi (totalling 18 hours over 2 days)
Making our way to Tanzania was pretty painless. The border experience was, however, very painful. For a start, the one-stop border building is still two buildings. After queueing up at one, we were told we had to go to the other. Then border officials wouldn’t accept our $100 note as it was from 2006, despite it looking like it was printed yesterday – god knows how the note has stayed so crisp for thirteen years. Apparently they only accept notes from 2009 and onwards. We ended up having to get Tanzanian shilling from an ATM, then exchanging it at the border bank for a 2013 USD note. Stupid. Then it appeared that immigration was on a tea break! It was a further thirty minutes, after waiting forty-five for USD, before I got my visa. Then Dan, who had been waiting outside with the bikes, had to go in to get his. What should have taken max twenty minutes, took over two hours.
It feels like we cut Rwanda short and that we never got to see an awful lot, which sounds insane since we spent sixteen days there. It’s definitely a country we’d like to go back to, as so many people raved about it when we were researching it and from what little(?) we saw, it was stunning. Rwanda, to be continued…
As it turns out, Tanzania is pretty big. So big, in fact, that after crunching the numbers, we wouldn’t have enough time to cycle the whole way to Zanzibar, not unless we stuck to the highway and just powered through the country. But where’s the fun in that? We want to go off-road and loop around some of Africa’s biggest mountain ranges. In order to do our perfect route, we had to skip the first half of the country and head to Arusha, which is a main town on the tourist route. That was easier said than done.
Back to the border. We had read there was a bus from the border to Singida, where we could catch a connecting bus to Arusha. After crossing we enquired about said bus and were told there was only one per day and it departed at 7.30am. He told us to come back tomorrow since it was now 1pm, so we checked into a hotel and prepared ourselves for a long day. We actually don’t mind the buses. It’s a full day of reading, music and podcasts. Maybe even a film if we can squeeze one onto our phones. The next day we were ready: Kindle and phones charged, podcasts downloaded, both in our off-the-bike clothes. I even went braless, excited for a proper day of freedom. Although things, of course, didn’t quite go to plan. Here’s the proceeding forty-eight hours in one chunk. Brace yourself, kids.
5am alarm.
Packed and feeling free, we checked out and rolled to the bus stop, back down the steep 200 m hill we’d climbed up from the border the previous day (we’d somehow cycled right past it and the guest house next door).
We arrived for the bus at 6.45am, as instructed, only to be told the bus had already sold out.
And there was no other bus to anywhere else.
No joke.
Not wanting to waste time — or tackle the 430 m over 18 km in our braless, off-the-bike clothes to the next town — we hitched a ride on the back of a lorry.
Bonus of being at a border: Loads of trucks.
It was a very bumpy ride.
I wished I had a bra on.
We arrived in Benaco – weirdly called Nyakasanza on Google Maps – at 9am and booked a ticket to another main transport hub of a town.
Then ate rice and beans, as it felt like lunchtime already.
The bus was due at 11am.
When it arrived (late) they said they were also full.
Even though we’d bought a ticket.
Seriously.
The ticket seller suggested we hitch a ride with a lorry again, but we didn’t fancy it for a 280 km journey.
Think of the braless-ness!
We wrestled a refund off the ticket seller and waited for another bus option to appear.
While waiting, we ordered more rice and beans.
There was talk of a mini bus.
That didn’t happen.
Then the ticket seller convinced another bus driver going to a different town to let us buy seven seats — five back seats for the bikes and two for us.
Winning.
It was due at 2pm.
It arrived at 4pm.
Not winning.
As we and our bikes boarded and took our seats, some other passengers were peeved that they a) Couldn’t get a seat, or b) Couldn’t even get on the bus.
Because of the bikes.
We felt bad.
But we had been there waiting patiently since 9am.
7 hours ago.
In the mad rush to board, every man and his dog helped us get on with all of our stuff. When you get help boarding, there’s always a moment of panic when you try to count all of your panniers.
Kinda like a teacher counting their kids on a school trip…
Three under our seat, one under their’s, two on the back seats, four on the overhead shelf.
Everyone’s accounted for.
*Breathes sigh of relief*.
Someone told us the bus would arrive in Kahama between 7pm-8pm.
We arrived at 10.30pm.
We’ve come to learn that times in Africa are never true.
Usually add two hours.
We’ve also come to learn that Africa = music.
African music blared the whole way.
Loud.
Very LOUD.
And people stood in the aisle.
We felt sorry for them.
So did our bikes.
After dragging everything off the bus, we battled through the touts to book a connecting bus to Arusha for the following morning.
Departing at 6am.
Ffs.
We checked into the closest hotel possible and finally collapsed into a deep sleep around midnight.
Four hours later we were up again and back at the bus park for 5.30am.
This time the bikes went in the cargo hold, since this was a coach.
Not a mobile sardine can.
We squeezed onto our seats amongst our ten panniers and settled in for what we were told was a nine hour bus ride.
We arrived at 5.30pm.
There’s that two hour rule again.
Just to make the never-ending journey extra special, the driver’s headlights didn’t seem to work and he drove the first forty-five minutes before sunrise pretty much blind.
Terrifying.
African music was play ridiculously loud again for the whole journey.
So loud we could hear it over our music, podcasts, and films.
Some guy behind us hung on to our seats and watched Dan watch Bronson on his phone and then play Rollercoaster Tycoon.
While the guy in front tried in vain to get one of our numbers.
Twice I had to tell the driver to stop as he drove off while Dan was still on the loo.
And our window didn’t open.
We practically flopped off the bus eleven-and-a-half hours later.
We’d barely had eight hours sleep in two nights.
We were knackered.
We checked into a hotel.
Then went to Pizza Hut.
One large pepperoni.
Then we passed out.
That may be the longest paragraph – can I even call it a paragraph with all those line breaks? – in the history of time. What a beast! I think it does the journey justice though. We now have two days’ rest in Arusha, where we’ll recharge ourselves and our stuff ready for a couple of weeks’ off-roading to Kilimanjaro. Now that’s a beast!