Am 27. Februar bin ich nach Kapstadt geflogen. Eine Woche spaeter sind wir gestartet. Das ist mitlerweile 100 Tage her.

In dem Zeitraum habe ich 4935 Kilometer an 51 Fahrtagen zurueckgelegt.
Tim hat wegen der Trennung etwa 5500 Kilometer 57 Fahrtagen ueberbrueckt.

Das ergibt einen Durchschnitt von 97 Kilometer pro Fahrtag.

Die laengste Etappe war 143 Kilometer nach Rundu in Namibia.
Tims laengste Etappe war 158 Kilometer von Kabonga nach Bujumbura.

Ich habe 17 neue Stempel im Reisepass.

Suedafrika-Kampala auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen

Wir haben 47 Naechte auf Campingplaetzen verbracht, 15 mal wild gecampt, 25 mal auf einer mehr oder weniger weichen Matratze in Hostels und Guesthaeusern gelegen, wurden 8 mal eingeladen und haben eine Nacht im Gebetsraum einer Mosche geschlafen.

Nach 11.000 Kilometern faengt mein Tretlager unruhig zu laufen.

Nach 13.600 Kilometern gibt es endlich ein neues Tretlager.

Nach 13.000  Kilometern gibt es einen neuen Schaltzug.

Nach 4000 Kilometern in Afrika wird ein Satz neuer Bremsbelaege faellig.
(Tim faerht sie nach 5500 Kilometern immernoch)

Nach 4300 Kilometern gibt es eine neue Kette. Die Kasette war etwas 2000 Kilometer aelter.
Tim ist den hinteren Ritzelsatz seit Fahrradkauf (bis da hin etwa 14000 Kilometer) ungewechselt gefahren und hat die Kette nach 6500 Kilometern gewechselt.

Wir haben 31 Platten und fehlgeschlagene Flickversuche, 2 davon sind geplatzt, 10 gebrochene Speichen, 3 gerissene Ketten und 1 Rahmenbruch hinter uns.

Nachdem mein erster Rueckspiegel bei einem Sturz im deutschen Winter zerbrochen ist, hat der zweite Spiegel die erste Kapstadt-Woche nicht ueberlegt. Den dritten Spiegel habe ich von Tim bekommen, der einen super Dienst leistet um herrankommende Trucks und Busse zu sehen. Er haellt bis heute.

Super zufrieden bin ich mit Keen Klicksandalen. Auch wenn ich sie leider eine Nummer zu gross habe.
Tim schlaegt sich mit den staendigen Reparaturen der Schlaufen rum. Die meiste Zeit funktionieren die aber hervorragend und haben bis jetzt nur einen Sturz zu verantworten.

Ich bin mit viel zu viel Klamotten gestartet, die in der ersten Woche alle rausgeflogen sind. Zur Zeit fahre ich mit zwei kurzaermligen und einem langaermligen Multifunktionsshirt, einem Radtricko, einer Mountainbike-Radhose, einer kurzen Hose, einer langen Hose, einer duennen Baumwollhose, einem Fleecepullover und einer Regenjacke.

Mein Schlafsack ist viel zu warm. Ein duenner, kleiner reicht voellig aus.

Der Benzinkocher ist eine riesen Krankheit. Anfangs zweimal mit Tankstellenbenzin befeuert, dannach nur noch mit Reinbenzin. Duese verstopft aber dauernd, hat dann keine Leistung. Wenn er mit Power laeuft, kann man ihn nicht kleinstellen. Ein Kocher ist in Afrika aber auch nicht unbedingt notwendig. Und vielleicht bin ich von der Einfachheit des Trangias verwoehnt.

On the further adventures of Tim traveling alone and how he would finally meet Fabian again:
Leaving Kigoma was quite a hassle with lacks of communication, scammers, exortioners and most of all beginning symptoms of culture shock.
One would think that making your way slowly into different cultures will help keep culture shock low. This is, at least while cycling, not the case! In contrary, cycling probably makes it even worse but to be honest: That’s also what we’ve been looking for.

I had to hang around Kigoma for a few hours until it finally turned 12. That is because LP-Guide stated that the Lake Taxis depart from Kipiri between 12 and 2 p.m. I had been there the day before and asked about the schedules which left me with 2 p.m. but I didn’t want to risk getting there at 2 and realizing the boats had already left. Also I had nothing left to do in Kigoma anyway, so I waited in Kipiri for two hours.

The problems started with finding the right boat. There where three with all the same people apparently manning the all boats and everybody was yelling in Kisuaheli and whichever language they might else use (except for English) and me with the phrasebook in between trying to figure out which boat was the correct one.
It worked out, they helped me heave the bike on to the boat and charged me 20000 Shillings in beforehand. My wallet fell into the water but praise be to the inventor of waterproof bills!
I know you’re not supposed to be the ferryman before you reach the other size but in that occasion, with the people yelling in Suaheli, gesturing like wild and waving with documents the pressure was just to high. Also due to the lack of communication when I tried to bargain on the price they thought I hadn’t understood the correct price (which by that time I had) and thought I wouldn’t pay at all…
All in all it wasn’t a very pleasant situation and I gave them their 20000 after a while just to get rid of them. That was the quadruple price that you would normally pay for the passage from Kipiri to Kabunga.
Time passed and eventually we, that is me and some 30 other people boarded the boat. Those boats are what you would imagine when talking about refugee barges. They consist of a hulk and a outboard engine which seems way too small to move everybody and that’s it.
All the luggage and cargo is thrown into the hulk, the boat lies a meter deeper in the water and then everybody sits on top of the cargo.
Naturally there’s no guardrail or other safety measures.
The boat on the water is just as crowded as the trucks on the streets.

And then it starts and you’d sit fixed in your position for 5 hours, in my case next to a boy who was totally flattened by the presence of a Mzungu. Touching me to see how I feel like, taking pictures and trying to talk to me with some weird voice which I think was the attempt to imitate American gangster slang. Funny enough he used his normal voice when talking Suaheli with the other ones on board. To do him justice: He was trying to be friendly all the while and actually shared the shade of his umbrella with me. Still I experienced it as rather irritating.
Then everybody kept talking. Talking about me which I assumed from their constant use of “Mzungu”, looking and laughing at me.
I rarely felt so alien as on that boat and it became worse when people started leaving the boat, arriving in their idyllic lake villages.

I would like to note here that all the experiences concerning alieness, hassle from the people and the usage of “Mzungu” where heavily influenced by my growing symptoms of culture shock. I am describing them here the way I experienced it all the while knowing that they are not as bad as I perceived them. Please keep that in mind while reading on and don’t draw the wrong conclusions on the normally very friendly people along the road.

So the levels of annoyance were constantly rising that day and I couldn’t wait to get off the boat and isolate myself from the world. After dark it arrived in Kabunga and a man from the boat who spoke some English offered me to help me find my way around, to the immigration office and a guest house. As said by that time I just wanted to be left alone and although annoyed I kept friendly and did appreciate his help a lot.
Since it was dark already I would have never found my way around that village which is muddy, clay huts and stretches over several hundred meters along the lake.
We walked that way, all the long with Mzungu cries coming from all sides. Finally we arrived at the border, a guest house right behind us, but the man who helped me wanted me to talk to the border official.

The officer was drunk. He smelled like alcohol from a meter a way and that didn’t exactly lift my spirits, things got worse when he wanted to see my passport. I obeyed and just hoped for the best and although drunk the man was – I must admit – very friendly.
In fact he was so friendly (and talkative) I followed a sudden intuition and asked him whether I could perhaps spend the night in his office since this would probably be the safest place in town. I didn’t feel safe in that town at all.
To my surprise he accepted without a second of hesitation and invited me in. He showed me the shower, gave me from their supper and even wanted to free a bed from somebody else for me which I could reject hastily by unrolling my mat on the floor in the office.
With that turning in events I couldn’t help but discarding my general bad mood and be grateful. I had a great night in that office, all the while feeling entirely safe and in the next morning I was the first to leave Tanzania (since I had slepped next to the desk…).
The last thing that happened in Tanzania: I asked the officer where I could change my remaining Shillings. He said there was no bureaux d’exchange but he would call someone from the market. – the black market? – yes. – Oh…
That particular person was still asleep so he advised me to try the black market in Kabonga (the Burundi side of town) and proceed and so I left Tanzania in great spirits.

Do you remember that (joke) picture we uploaded concerning the border post on reaching Malawi? The one where there was that house built of sticks with the immigration sign on it?
If you do you now know how the Burundi immigration office in Kabonga looks like. No kidding.. a hut built of branches, actually no sign, three police officers and a book in which they would write who entered the country.
Since I had the Visa already there were no further complications to entering the country and although my french is fairly limited I enjoyed practicing a little with the officers.
Then I continued, highly expectant of what awaited me in Burundi.

I had heard a lot about Burundi and Rwanda from other travelers, cyclists amongst them, in before hand and it was exclusively positive. I will just give a few quotations here: “You will love Burundi, the people are so kind there. The kids will actually push you up the mountains!”; “People in Burundi are so friendly. The trucks literally invite you to drag you up the mountains.”; “Burundi and Rwanda is only up and down but you can hang your self to the back of the trucks like the locals do”.

After my first euphoria about reaching Burundi, a completely unknown place to me, settled, resignation came. None of the quotations seemed to be right. Testoterone levels seem to be very high in Burundi. Everybody kept yelling at me, especially young men. Ey Mzungu! Ey Muzungu! Ey Whitey! Ey Blanco! For a change they would whistle or hiss. It’s densiley populated. You won’t get out of town for long, there are people everywhere. Ey Mzungu will go on for all day long.
In the morning you keep smiling placidly, waving back and trying to take it as greetings. Later you still know it’s greetings but you can’t help but feeling annoyed. Then you get angry. Why the hell is the only thing people see in you a fucking white guy and then they are even open enough to yell it in your face all day long? I don’t go around shouting Ey black man all day, do I? The constant yelling, partially aggressive, and as sad mainly the being lowered down to the color of your skin really messes with your mind.
I did a 160km that day from Kabonga to Bujumbura, it was tough due to heat and partial head wind, but the worst of that day were those first symptoms of culture shock. I simply couldn’t force myself to take it positive anymore. I tried accepting it as greeting, it didn’t work. I tried what Dennis suggested before (it’s just another way of saying “Tim”) but having your name shouted at you all day long isn’t very pleasant either. I tried ignoring it and thinking of something else but that made things just worse. People then just tend to yell louder and more persistent until you look at them.
I do take a certain pride though about never getting angry at any particular person. Only once I told one educated looking guy who addressed me in english as “white man” he shouldn’t be fucking racist. Oh well…
Anyway. That day hat exhausted me physically as well as mentally and gave me a really bad start with Burundi. I hated it and wanted to get out again as quickly as possible. That said: Especially the lake side is extremely beautiful, the nicest part of Lake Tanganyika so far and although not set up for independent travel there are some high class hotels on the white sand beaches.

Getting out of Bujumbura was way harder than expected. My French by that time was hardly sufficient to take directions from people here, there’s close to no English in Burundi and Kisuaheli and Chirundi are even less on my behalf. Then there’s of course no signage and for the first time not one major road but several separations in town which eventually will join all together again in a giant roundabout on the other side of town. It took me two hours to figure that out and find it finally so – in spite of my original plan to take the first ascend in the early morning while it was still cool – the sun was already burning when I started climbing out of Bujumbura.
The mountains start right at the edge of town and they go directly from some 750m altitude on my map up to 2000m altitude on my map (that’s the lines and therefore not absolutely accurate). Then the road will fluctuate on a height of around 2000m. There’s soldier’s everywhere because, as I later heard, those northern regions are a rather volatile area.
After ten minutes I was literally dripping with sweat. I had already drunk one liter, people passing by stared at me as if I were crazy (but they didn’t shout), the weight of the bike seemed to drag me back down and I caught myself trying to estimate how far I had gotten after not more than two hundred meters.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I wouldn’t get anywhere that day if I continued like that and I started turning back, looking out for approaching trucks.
They came but in most occasions they were too fast for me to catch. Still at the back of every single truck there were four local cyclists hanging on, no matter how fast it was going.
It’s a little scary to see those people sitting sideways on their bike, one hand holding some grip at the truck, the other one free or on the handlebar and the truck will just rush up the hill.
Finally also a truck arrived at which I felt comfortable to hang on to. You’ll shift into higher gears and have a small race up hill with the truck. First you try to keep its speed, then you slow down a little so you get behind it and then you’ll sprint to catch back with it. You’ll ride so close your front wheel is almost touching the truck, you’ll bend over lean forward with the entire body to try find a hold and then finally you’ll get it. All the weight of you and the bike is on your arms then, you’re out of breath and have a hard time catching it again because you’re in the exhaust of the car.
But you’ve finally made it and are rewarded with three cheering locals around you that will start babbling in Chirundi with you.

It was the first time I’d been hanging to the back of a truck. I’ve been clinging to car windows and pick up backs before but the back of a truck is something totally different. Especially in the manners the drivers drive.
I managed to stick there for not longer than five minutes. Then we passed a smaller peak, the truck accelerated and my bike got unstable. I stabilized it again but it got unstable again and I almost fell. I could just manage to let go of the truck and aid with my second hand. But it was close, too close to be honest. Especially since I wasn’t wearing a helmet then.

That was a scary experience and I swore myself to wear helmet as well as gloves the next time I’d try hanging to a truck. I didn’t.
To wear a helmet while cycling up hill at noon is probably as suicidal as it is to hang to trucks without. You get so hot under it that you’ll start sweating even heavier and if you don’t suffer heatstroke you’ll go blind from sweat and fall off a cliff . So if you want to wear a helmet at a truck you’ll need a certain head start to prepare, which due to all the bends you usually don’t have.

I forgot which truck the next one was in particular but I had learned my lessons: First it’s the most efficient mode of “cycling” in the Burundi mountains. Second it’s way too dangerous. Third if you’re holding the handlebar with your right hand (always use your strongest) and the truck with your left never ever under any circumstances let your arms cross. You’ll fall.
So we continued on and the next lesson I learned: Even if a truck accelerates to a speed where it gets tough that usually only means there’s a steeper passage ahead for which it’s gathering momentum. Don’t let go. You’ll regret it.
Lesson number five: If you go down hill behind a truck let go but don’t fall behind or try to take over. You’ll never get back on again.
In most cases you’re fast than trucks while going down hill but their momentum is higher as soon as it goes up hill again.
So what happens is you fall behind or take over and the truck will just rush away from you and you’ve got no chance of ever catching it again. You’ll have to stay right behind it and grip hold again the moment it starts outrunning you.

In the end (is a truck actually a he or an it?) I got pretty got at hanging on to trucks. I could even continue on gravel roads and the last truck I let go was after half an hour when my arm was about to be torn out of my shoulder – or at least it felt so.

The day I was talking about ended after 105kms in the last “town” before the border whichs name I have already forgotten. It wasn’t a particulary pleasant place but I was in an extremly good mood then.
As I had said I started suffering from culture shock upon leaving Tanzania. I really felt bad because people only tried to be friendly and all I could give back was a frown.
I kept pleading for something great to happen to change my mind and that day it actually did. On one very steep hill once again kids started running with me, endlessly yelling “Good morning Mzungu” (although it was afternoon). I didn’t even look at them. I just tried to breathe smoothly which occured to me very hard on that particular hill.
Since I didn’t react the kids thought of another way to catch my attention: They started pushing me up hill!
I never would have imagined it, neither the stories being true, nor those kids actually being of any more than symbolic help, but they were. Half of the weight seemed to be taken off me within seconds and we were literally rushing up the hill with the kids panting behind me while pushing the heavy bike (and even heavier cyclist).
I felt so embarrassed for my arrogant behavior, gratefull for their amazing kindness and within seconds everything seemed to change again. The world seemed lighter, I could finally greet back again and wave to people. I discovered that all the yelling was far less if you waved at them before they yelled.

I slept extremly well that night. I had been totally exhausted, there was a thunderstorm raging across the peaks of the mountains and it was cold. Freezing cold. I had to take a cold shower but then I could cuddle into the fleece blankets and the world was just great.
My positive attitude stayed the next day. Although I wasn’t as euphoric anymore I could still appreciate the people around me and then I finally left Burundi.
I left Burundi with entirely mixed feelings. Firstly it is a beautiful country – extremley densely populated, mountainious with a beautiful lake and tons of great bananas. As for a shortage of flat land the Burundians seem to be close to inventing vertical acreage.
Then the people are kind, especially in the mountains (For some reason I don’t know mountain people always seem to be nicer than those in the flat lands… no offense!). Then on the other hand people – especially at the lake tend to be very yelly. I really don’t know what to think of that country.
It’s definetly not set up for travel and I probably wouldn’t go there again too soon. But it wasn’t entirely bad either, no actually there were some great experiences and people were very honest. Not much bargaining, nobody tried to sell me anything or rip me off.
Well… I don’t know. Mixed feelings, as said. There’s definetly nicer places but also worse. And my opinion is biased by the culture shock.

But enough of Burundi. It’s definetly been worth the experience and I know a lot more about a country I’ve rarely heard it’s name before.
The crossing to Rwanda was once again managed by my passports on it’s own. I don’t know whether I stated that before but my French is only sufficient to ask for prices, directions and tell people I don’t know which document they’re talking about.
The latter is exactly what I did when I reached the border. The official thought for a while, went through my passport, stamped it and I could proceed. We are so amazingly privileged with being German.
Entering Rwanda was still no problem, the officer actually spoke quite decent English. I later discovered that Rwanda had officially changed it’s second language from French to English some two years ago… which resulted in huge chaos in schools and universities.

Rwanda greeted me with a beautiful beautiful road, an eucalyptos alley actually, clean and broad, no traffic no peasants. I had heard that Rwanda was the second most densely populated country south of the Sahara but that was hard to imagine because villages were at least ten Kilometers apart.
I just cycled pleasantly up and down, enjoying the beautiful scenery and once in a while chasing away begging kids. Yes kids started begging here again and in contrast to Malawi they seemed to know exactly what they want. But begging wasn’t too bad and it didn’t disturb me much.
What disturbed me more was that beginning in Burundi you would see “real” poverty. Dirt covered children with clear signs of undernourishment. But what can I do about it? There’s no point in giving them food, especially if they don’t beg, because that won’t give them long term relief and will only result in even more begging.
It helped to comfort myself with our fund raising campaign (that was a hint..) which also provides help to undernourished children in their respective programs.
That said: It wasn’t as if the whole population was starving. Those sights (i.e. undernourishment) were rare and most people are looked more or less well fed.

Later that day I arrived at Huye. I was confused because I wanted to go to Butare and not to Huye and even worse Huye wasn’t even on the map. After a while I discovered that Huye was the old name of Butare and I was in the right place.
It’s a great place: Ice cream, chinese food, hot water, fast internet.
I decided to spend a day there and rested from the intense cycling of the past days. The Rwanda National museum proved to be a disappointement. At least in what I had been looking for (i.e. information on contemporary history). It had great exhebitions on pre colonial times but I know from various german museums how people lived in the iron age and Rwanda was a tropical adaption of that, although iron age lasted here until the 1950s…
The exhibition on colonial and postcolonial time was half a wall with 5 pictures and dina4 vitas of the presidents. That’s it.
I also met Sue and Sandra there, two US citizens who volunteered/worked in Rwanda as English teachers.
Sandra lives in Gitarama, my next stop and invited me to stay at her place which I gladly accepted. They also told me that if you’re looking for information on the genocide you have to visit the genocide memorial in Kigali.

By the time I reached Gitarama the next day and after some confusion had found Sandra’s place it was already afternoon. She showed me the university where she worked and eventually we decided to go to Kigali together the next day to visit the genocide memorial.
We did and it was.. intense. Very very very intense.
Now coming from Germany I’d say I’ve been exposed to quite a lot of post holocaust memorial works, seen many of the pictures and exhibitions and I’ve heard the stories.
Still that exhibition shocked me. It was so good. It could have kept up with every single memorial in Germany easily, perhaps it’s even better than most of them. It’s so intense it it seems to creep under your skin and really touch your soul.
I felt physically sick at times watching the interviews of survivors, seeing the pictures. It is so..
The exhibition is very details in the causes and results and what happened during the genocide. And allthough it gives you all the preconditions it’s still unbelievable how something like that can actually happen. How that switch in human minds can be turned from normal mode into bloodfrenzied monster mode.

Two more things struck me being remarkable about that exhibiton. Firstly there was one extra exhibition on other genocides in history (e.g. Red Khmer, Nazi Germany, Armenia, etc.). And then.. the one that really brought me to the edge of crying: There was an exhibition dedicated to the children who died in the genocide.
Parents had sent the last photographs of their children (not the corpses but the living children) to the memorial together with a short profile.

So you would have the picture of a shily smiling girl or a crying infant enlarged and printed on glass above the profile.

And below:
Name:
Age (at death): 8 months
Favorite Food: Mother’s milk
Character: Weak and small child
Favorite Family member: Sister
Death: Smashed against wall.

There were perhaps 15 portraits of that kind but at the end I was close to crying and glad to get out again. A very very intense experience which I would highly recommend to everybody travelling to Rwanda.

Then the final day to Ruhengeri. Or almost.. the road was long and still mountainous. Worse than ever actually. It also was the most beautiful road, it wound up the long slopes of the 2500+ mountains above fog filled valleys, through bamboo forests and past steep cliffs.
I had to truck driver friends who regularly waited for me at the bottom of hills and so I managed to at least reach the junction of the Gitarama road with the Gisenyi – Ruhengeri road. By that time the sun started setting, it had been some 90kms (although the map had stated 87 to Ruhengeri) and according to the street signs 27kms remaining.
I decided I couldn’t make it if the road continued the way it had been all day long and found a place in a sleazy guest house.

The next day I got up very early to finally meet Fabian in Ruhengeri. I had missed him a lot, culture shock had been returning in Rwanda and I was looking forward to once again cycling and sharing all the experiences with Fabian.
The 20 remaining Kilometers (I had cycled some 7 or so from the junction) took me 30 minutes.
It was only down hill for the entire way … but never mind. I went to the hotel where we wanted to meet the evening before and asked for a Mzungu with a bicycle. They seemed to know immediatley whom I was talking about and actually woke poor Fabian (who was after a night of partying still sleeping) up for me.

We both enjoyed being reunited again and sat for quite a long time in a cafe chatting and exchanging stories and news. Then we started doing our buiseness in Ruhengeri… but that in the next report.
This one is too long already (almost 4,500 words).

I’m sorry for taking so long and posting such a confused and long article. I wrote it in at least 4 different sessions and never managed to finish it due to various reasons. Still… it’s done now and I hope you enjoy it.

Since I’m still trying to recover from diarrhea (which I think I haven’t mentioned here) which has been following me more or less uninterrupted since Kigoma, I’ll be uploading the article on reaching Kampala (where we are now) hopefully in due time.
Enjoy.

Eigentlich wollte ich gerade die Bilder und den Artikel von der Liemba ueberfahrt hochladen. Ein Virus auf dem Internet-Cafe-Rechner hat jedoch den USB-Stick befallen. Die Festplatten und unser verbleibender halber Laptop sind aber sicher und ich werde die Bilder bei der naesten gelegenheit hochladen. Deswegen jetzt ersteinmal nur ein paar Bilder aus dem letzten Monat.

Nachdem diese Woche der Vollmond abnahm, sind die Fischer nachts wieder zum Capenta Fischen rausgefahren. Im ersten Morgengrauen kommen sie zurück, begleitet von einem großen Auflauf am Strand.

This article will be slightly different from the previous ones. Firstly because it has near to no cycling involved, secondly because there are (sadly) no pictures and thirdly because it doesn’t concern Fabian for the major part.

The reason is the following: After we published “Karonga – Mpulungu” we boarded, after quite some confusion with departing times, a cargo ship to Bujumbura. It was supposed to leave at 2 p.m. when we arrived there. We were told that it wouldn’t leave before 4 p.m. and we could go into town again.
We killed some two hours around town and returned back late. We hurried to get our exit stamps before the immigration closed and in the second the stamp hit the passport the captain came into the office and told us they wouldn’t be leaving before 10 a.m. the following day.
Now we had already officially left Zambia and technically couldn’t go back to the camping ground, so we convinced the captain to let us sleep on the boat… together with around 40 other passengers.

The night on deck was an experience of it’s own. As cargo boats should be (“it’s a ship not a boat!”) it was fully loaded with, in that case, cement, iron bars and a car. Somewhere in between the passengers tried to find a place to spend the night on deck. A huge light was illuminating the entire deck for the whole night, a generator was running somewhere and everything was full with cement dust.

Fabian by that time was starting to feel worse again and pitched his mosquito net, mats and luggage in the only free shade where no people were walking, which sent me grumbling and lying jammed between iron bars, the luggage and underneath the ropes holding the car. I literally couldn’t move when I was down there. And I was for the first time of the tour really pissed with Fabian because at that point in my opinion it was an evitable major discomfort.
I later felt sorry for my anger when he approached me to check whether he had fever (which he had). He moved drowsily and was obviously really feeling ill. Still, as much as I regretted that, there wasn’t much I could have done for him in the middle of the night on that cargo ship. They wouldn’t even let us leave the harbor at night, so we just had to go back to sleep and wait for the next morning.

The next morning then brought no major improvement to Fabians condition and he decided not to be capable of making the 40 hour journey. He wanted to rest and stay in Mpulungu until he was feeling really better again, also he was afraid he might have caught Malaria and wanted to have that checked too.
So once again we (in that case me and the porters) hurled the bikes across the water and up the next ship, back to land. We left the harbor shortly after sunrise so the immigration was not open yet.
I accompanied Fabian back to the camping ground where I told Charity (the manager) about him feeling so ill. She most kindly offered to stay room camping for the same price as normal camping which we accepted gratefully.
The Americans (I am very sorry but I can only recall Bill’s name) we had met there before offered us a ride to the hospital, where we discovered it was not Malaria.
Although still joking about Amoeba and Typhoid Fever we came to the conclusion that it will probably be symptoms of exhaustion combined with digestive problems.
The last thing we had to do that day was go to the immigration office and organize an re-entry into Zambia.
Although the people there were very helpful and understanding it still took some two hours to solve the problem: They crossed out the “exit” stamp and wrote “canceled” over it. Hrmmm…

Now with us both allowed to stay in Zambia for some more time and Fabians numerous assurances that he would get along fine I decided to continue traveling on my own for the time Fabian would be resting.
Fabian intends to take the Liemba on Friday which left me with 11 days of spare time if we were to meet in Kigoma (Tanzania, where the Liemba leaves).
I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, Tanzania is very big, but I wanted to go to Tanzania and I wanted to do some backpacking. So by noon that day I was on my way out of Mpulungu.

Since I was allowed to stay in Zambia for the remaining time of my Visa I decided to take the 80km detour (return) to the Kalambo Falls. We had heard a lot about them and people said they were more impressive than the Vic Falls – which I wouldn’t quite believe.
The road to the Kalambo Falls was, down hill, very beautiful although it required some driving skill. It offered literally everything: Steep ascends and even steeper descends, rock passages with rocks the size of 6-month babies and everything smaller, deep sand, sealed surface, forest, gravel. And once again also everything combined.
The last descend was actually so steep and precipitous that I was close to getting convulsions in my hands from the constant braking.

Anyway: It took me some three hours to reach the falls and they were worth everything, the endless suffering on the way down and the even greater suffering on the way up again. But enough of the exaggeration, the road was demanding but just fine.
Concerning the Falls I am once again lacking the adjectives and especially superlatives to do them justice. I don’t normally like to do these kinds of comparisons but for all of you who have seen the “Avatar” movie (which according to statistics will probably have been more or less everyone) it looks just like the scenes in the movie.
No flying rocks and fish and octopuses of course but the fall itself, the landscape. The same.

You’re standing on a cliff, a thin river flows next to you, falling over the edge of the cliff and down for some estimated 200 to 300meters. It’s roaring at least as loud as the Vic Falls.
You can’t see the water crashing into the river below because of the mist but then you will see the rapids winding through the steep slopes densely covered with rain forest.
You can see through the river valley for some five kms until it takes a turn and flows into the lake. At the end of the valley the sun will be setting.
It’s just plain amazing. I even took a swim, two meters from the edge, in a slower pool.
Now that was nice but it’s going to become better: five meters from where the water falls there is a rock spine pointing horizontally out of the cliff into the abyss.
It’s wide enough for a mat (but only five cms remaining on either side) and long for a human of my size to lie on the spine the whole body and majority of the legs. The wardens were joking about me sleeping there, I did it. And it was amazing.
You can’t move because either side you could fall down, five meters from your head there’s the water falling across the edge in the light of the full moon. The wind occasionally blows drops of water into you face, the roaring and thundering eliminates all other noises. There was a thunder storm on the horizon.
It was simply.. amazing is not strong enough. Incredibly intense. A primal experience.

And then I broke with diarrhea. It came over me at some point in the night and I had to start running. I packed my stuff together because with me running to the toilet all the time sleeping on the cliff appeared to dangerous to me.
But still it was worth it and if I had slept through the night only my ears would have suffered. You don’t notice your sleeping next to a water fall while sleeping anyway.

The next day after getting up I was already too exhausted from the night to go back to the falls and have a last glimpse at them. I had a tough ascend ahead of me but still I decided to proceed to Tanzania.
I just didn’t want to waste the chance and the freedom I had enjoyed on the way down. Now don’t get me wrong here: I really enjoy cycling with Fabian a lot and I need him to keep up motivation and for his greater knowledge of bikes and company for that matter. But once in a while it is nice to have the absolute freedom of choice about what you do.
Stopping for a butterfly or not, going where you want, eating what you want, taking the detours you want and stopping whenever you want or not stopping when you don’t want to.
So I enjoyed that freedom and decided to proceed although I really suffered my way back up hill, pushing the greater parts. And this time without exaggeration.

I later ran into a South African whom we had met at the camping ground earlier, briefly and we traveled to Sumbawanga together. Sadly it took a rather unpleasant ending but I won’t go into details here.
I cycled (after returning back from the falls) to Mbala to get my exit stamp and after no ride arrived to the hour I proceeded to the Tanzanian border by bike. I was feeling better, still not strong but better by that time and the way was quite nice.
The border itself wasn’t very spectacular, the Zambian side being not much more than a cattle fence and the Tanzanian side a concrete lock with iron gates.
The border official then was pretty much the coolest officer we met on the tour. No uniform, sitting behind a laptop in the otherwise empty office. A young guy who spoke perfect English. We chatted for quite some time alongside dealing with my entry. He was a great help at getting the right Visa and also told me that a collective East Africa Visa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania) is planned but not yet available.
The border town, Kaseya, wasn’t spectacular at all. I found a place in a tiny guesthouse and a cheap meal. What was spectacular though is the following:
Firstly I was taught how to play “Boa”, a terribly mathematical East African board game which you can not possibly learn just by watching. They play it so quick and seem to place marbles randomly on the four rows of the game.
It’s fun though once you’ve learned it and getting taught a game without understanding a word of each others language except for Nidyo (Yes) and Hapana (No) is a great experience too.

The other thing is the remarkable kindness and helpfulness of the Tanzanian people. Starting with the border official through all my way through Tanzania I encountered amazingly helpful people.
Everybody is interested and if you seem to need help it will take no five minutes until somebody has stopped, discovered that to his surprise you don’t seem to understand Kisuaheli and then found somebody who speaks English.

But the best thing is that the Tanzanian people seem to be, although extremely friendly if approached, comparably cautious. They don’t yell as you as much as Zambians and Malawians did. I didn’t here a single whistle or hiss in the whole of Tanzania.
But once you approach them they ware very friendly and talkative. As you can see I love this place. Tanzania is my new favorite place so far (with more reasons to come).

The following day brought a ride on a truck to Sumbawanga. The bike was tied to the outside rail of the cargo area, our luggage was squashed somewhere beneath all the luggage of the other people, with oil barrels on top of that and then the people on top of that!
It occurred to me as a miracle that the bike and luggage survived that trip without further problems. That ride was by the way arranged by a man we had met the evening before, “Remmy”, who also went to Sumbawanga.
On that first ride we had the great privilege of boarding first and thus being able to secure seats in the driver’s cabin. Those trucks usually tend to be overloaded with people and luggage and going in the back is not too much fun.

The connection from Sumbawanga to Mpanda was organized by the mentioned border official. By that time I was planning on leaving my bicycle in Kigoma and jetting to Zanzibar for a few days so I was in quite a hurry to reach Kigoma (since the trip to Zanzibar and back takes 5 days).
Sumbawanga is an awful place and Mpanda is worse. I arrived at Mpanda at night which is bad but our bus left Sumbawanga with an 5 hour delay so there was nothing to do about it. All the while my bike was in the cargo area in the bottom of the bus with both wheels dismantled. It gave me the creeps because the ride was real tough (the roads in western Tanzania are least said adventurous), some of the bumps were so bad it gave you real pains in the spinal cord. I could virtually see my cassettes braking below me.
And once again – miraculously – my bike survived. I guess Schauff did a good job at assembling it.

I left Mpanda very early that morning. It was Sunday and so no buses were leaving for Kigoma. I intended to hitch a ride on a Lori (Truck) again and since they had left Kaseya before dawn I was up an hour before dawn again.
It took me some time to find the correct road out of Mpanda but once again I got the pleasure of the Tanzanian helpfulness. This time to the negative side. One problem is that if people don’t quite understand what you’re saying they just answer “yes”. So if you find a person who’s capable of decent English you’re never quite sure whether they understood what you said or not.
In that case another cyclist offered me to show me where the Loris leave. On the question whether he was going to take it too he answered “yes”…

We rode out of town for an hour. Sun was rising and I finally gave up hope to reach the place were the Loris depart and settled with just cycling to Kigoma. That’s some 240km from Mpanda, so doable in two days.

In a village were I stopped to fill up water (I didn’t bring any when setting off) I found a pick up truck which was actually going to Kigoma.
Some bargaining got me a decent price for the ride and so I got a ride sprawled out on the back of that pickup on my long way to Kigoma.
The ride takes 10 hours with a car going fast.

After an hour or so, we had had breakfast in between which consists of incredibly sweet but delicious Chai (tea) and Chapati (“pancakes”) and optional chicken, we passed a Lori. The problem with that Lori was that it had crashed, it just fell of the road down a small slope and all the passengers were roaming the roadside.
That of course was the end of the comfortable part of the ride. Soon after we were eight people and a baby and all their luggage on the back, clinging onto each other not to fall off on the heavy bumps.
I was sitting next to a man, a school teacher, with which I had a nice conversation. He also introduced me to the art of eating sugar cane.

All in all the ride was long, very long, and even more exhausting but enjoyable too. The driver was going at a pretty fast speed so it didn’t get too hot and the landscape was plain amazing.
First the road went up into the mountains, cliffs scattered in the known light mountainous forests, grassy parts and almost rain forest like passages. Then the road would open the view on what I assume was the rift valley and you would go down hill for ages. The forest would turn into bamboo woods, into grass land, into bamboo woods, into farm land.
There was one police road block before Uvinza at which the driver had to pay a bribe to the local police officer.
I hadn’t seen anybody paying bribes before but the matter is handled pretty openly in Tanzania. The first time I encountered it was when the driver from Kaseya to Sumbawanga actually had to bribe two different officers…
Interesting enough nobody tried to press bribes from the white travellers.

We dropped up the new passengers at Kazungula and made our way to Kigoma. Kigoma is a comparatively nice town, that due to it’s lake shore setting. It’s got the idyllic boat in a bay setting with the steep mountains of Congo on the other shore.

And now the second reason why I love Tanzania so much: It’s finally got fruit! There’s an endless supply of fresh papaya and pineapple and guava and oranges and bananas and avocado and water melon and it’s just awesome.
I’ve been feeding fresh fruit ever since I arrived here. It’s cheap to. Great! I love it. We should stay much longer in the equatorial regions.. but Ethiopia offers good food too. Only Sudan and Egypt aren’t famous.. mhmm.. Never mind.

I had some major confusion about my plans here in Kigoma. It’s just too hard to get away from this place and my mother contributed to it by suggesting just to proceed along the route rather than wasting all the money and time on transport and wait somewhere nice on the route.
I ended up with the latter suggestion but it took me through some major chaos involving a already booked (but not payed) bus ride to Dar Es Salaam.
On deciding to proceed along the route the next question arising was about the Burundian Visa. Gladly there is an consulate here in Kigoma, which although is very hard to find since it seems to move frequently.
Right now it is located on the eastern mountain about half way up and no decent road is leading toward it.
The easiest way to get there is to follow the road leaving from the roundabout in front of the gas station up the hill, continue straight when it turns left until you reach the shule (school). Go around the shule and up the dirt road. The only building with a flag is the Burundian consulate…
There is some major confusion in town about where that consulate is and asking around I was advised to go in literally every direction. Finally a man actually accompanied me there (since my lack of understanding Kisuaheli made giving directions hard) in the midday heat. Asante sana!

The people at the consulate were quite helpful and I got my Visa without further problems although I think that a 60USD for a country of Burundi’s size is rather expensive.

So tomorrow around noon, after stocking up with fresh fruit, I will take a Lake Taxi to Kagunga, the last town in Tanzania and from there to Nyanza-Lac in Burundi, to Bujumbura and finally Rwanda.
I’ll be meeting with Fabian in Ruhengeri as the plan is right now, hiking the volcanoes until he arrives.

Now since Fabian has the Camera sadly there is no evidence of my stay in Tanzania. Just believe me and perhaps enjoy the plain text without pictures. The article’s title picture is a photo taken in Malawi. And mainly to avoid the big question mark on the main page. Perhaps Fabian will upload some pictures from file later…

So long,
Tim

p.s. at least I’m trying to learn some Kisuaheli and I would strongly advise every other traveler to Tanzania to do so too. People (at least in these beautiful remoter parts) don’t speak much English.