Rwanda

Rwanda

The last days in Tanzania we have been facing our first tough and steep hills. A constant up and down, going up sometimes as slow as 5km an hour and down as fast as 50km an hour. It was beautiful though, the views amazing!

After more than a week we arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

Kigali is a big city with 1 million inhabitants, the city is quite modern and developed compared to what we saw before and prices are no longer cheap but rather normal European prices. When we came into Rwanda it was a sudden change…houses like the ones we know back from home with little gardens and fences…the locals were again excited to see “mzungus”, the children came often running after us up the hills and a few times even pushed me up. The traffic got worse though…trucks, buses and cars seem to overtake where they can even in the middle of a corner and we saw many near crash situations as well as a few crashed trucks and cars at the side of the road. There is a little sidepath for the pedestrians. The bicycles (including us) and motorbikes seem to switch between road and sidepath wherever there is space…but that does not always go so smoothly…So once when I got off the road where a car was coming full speed and another car was overtaking, I had to go for a sudden stop because the sidepath was busy with pedastrians. As a result though a local cyclist crushed into me. His bicycle fell over and the avocados (which where on the back of his bicycle in a huge bag) where rolling over the road. Everyone was laughing. The children were telling me “I am sorry” but in the same breath “Give me money”. The begging got worse in Rwanda, even though the country seems much richer.

We went to the genocide memorial in Kigali today… The stories and pictures of the genocide are horrifying and sad…a whole room in the museum was dedicated to all the children that died, being shot or even burned alive. And this happened only 20 years ago and the whole world was watching and doing nothing to help. It is unbelievable though to see how quick the country got back to its feed after such a tragedy.

Mwanza

Mwanza

Here we are in Mwanza at the Lake Victoria…the lake that we are going to cycle around for the next two months going through Rwanda, Uganda, Kenia and back into Tanzania.

Arriving in Mwanza it felt like the end to something and the beginning to something new…the first part of our trip going through the center of Tanzania, going through vast mountanius and desert like landscapes comes to an end. We come to the lake with its lush vegetation, green and greener hills, trees and forests. It was a sudden change, maybe 30km before Mwanza from the dry sandy landscape to the green landscape…the air moist…

In Mwanza we had a few days break…we met a Swedish guy called Kalle. Together we had dinner in a Pizzeria and I even had an Italian cappuccino.

The next day we went to a swimming pool and later found a bar with an amazing few over the lake Victoria. Here we watched a thunderstorm coming in, lightning over the lake. The thunderstorms seem to have become regularity, usually in the evenings.

Another day we spent on a beach at the lake Victoria a bit outside the town and then some time in the internet and making plans about our route.

After a few days rest we were ready to go for another week through Tanzania before we get to the Border to Rwanda. Leaving Mwanza we got a bit lost for the first time or lets say we probably made a huge detour on a road that wasn’t on our map. We don’t actually know, maybe it was even the right way, it was the way the locals pointed but not on our map and much longer than the road we were looking for. The road here was a dirt track, sand with some stones and holes in it…it was slow and quite exhausting going on these roads and after 30km we were so tired we stopped when we saw a really nice lodge.

The next day was then a bit tougher with 90 km and a continuum of hills, I still feel my muscles 3 days afterwards.

Today has been the first time here in Africa that I felt cold. It was nice refreshingly cool and cloudy in the morning, got sunny and warm during the day though and then a big thunderstorm came over us leaving us cycling through heavy rains for 2 hours. We were off course soaking wet…until now I never thought about taking out my rain jacket because I am usually warm and a little shower is only refreshing but today it would have been wise to take out my jacket but once the heavy rain started I was soaked within a few minutes and then I didn’t care anymore. We found a little guesthouse in a small town, its basic with only a bucket of cold water to wash with and the usual squat toilet but all I really cared about is getting dry and warm and that I did as soon as I had my room. Tonight dinner is Rice and Chicken again.

 

700km!!! We made it to Singida. 

A bigger town, a bit similar to Dodoma. Big Rocks are all around the town…they look beautiful in the sunset light in between the sandy earth, some Mango and palm trees. Here we have a rest day again. We got ice cream and chocolate!!!, which we don’t get anywhere in the small towns where we cycle through. We treated ourselves with the chocolates and a few beers and today we could sleep in and got Spanish Omelet for breakfast. We all seem to really need this rest day after the last 4 days cycling. We had a few hills here and there and had a big day of 120km (we didn’t really plan on it and in the end it was counterproductive because we were too tired to keep going the next day). This day started easy with downhill and then cycling on the flat, so we felt strong to keep going. We had a long stretch without town and we had not enough water and food for camping, so we decided to keep going to the next town (that was after we did already about 100km or more)…but then a big hill came and the midday sun was on us, it must have been one of the hottest days. I was not feeling well all of the sudden, it might have been the heat, the exercise or both together…after a bottle of cold water over my head I felt a bit better. We somehow made it to a guesthouse in the town which was not on the road, like our map said, but 3km along a side road that was just sand. The guesthouse we found then was the most basic place we stayed in. No shower or running water, a communal toilet, a bucket of water that we could use for washing ourselves. The bed was too small for Danny and me together, the mosquito net useless because of many holes, no fan and it was very hot.

On top of that we all had stomach problems and diarrhea from something we ate. Luckily we still had some toilet paper with us. After the worst nights sleep, feeling mentally and physically exhausted and sick, the next day we made it slowly to the next town which was 20km away and found a decent guesthouse with a shower and stayed there. I think at that time both me and Dylan felt so horrible we would have gladly taken the plane to fly home.

After a little sleep and a shower, resting my belly (which was in cramps all morning) I felt better though and the next day we were fresh on the bike, maybe not a 100% with a little sore muscles but the cycling now seemed easy and we stopped after 82km, feeling tired but not dead, that good feeling of tiredness after a day of activity. My stomach was fine again and the next day was only a 40km cycle into Singida, where we are now. 

It now feels kind of normal to be here in Africa, the daily routine of cycling, being the only white people, being in a hot climate in a vast landscape with small villages, markets and many children screaming excited “mzungu mzungu” waving and running after your bicycle etc…Everything that seemed so strange and new in the beginning.

Our next destination is Mwanza at the Lake Victoria…in about a week we plan to be there and stay for a few days and visit one of the islands on the lake that has elephants and giraffes.

Pictures are coming later…

We are now in Dodoma in Central Tanzania. In 4 days we cycled here from Morogoro...We had a lot of uphill (and most of it in 1 day) but then also a lot downhill the next day (on that day we did almost 100km, i think it was 98km). In total we did around 450 km in 7 days of cycling. We are slowly getting into our rhythms and routines... and yet everyday is different. The Landscape changed a lot since Morogoro...we came from the more tropical landscape, hilly, then flat and then mountainous in Morogoro into a much dryer landscape, different mountains again, vast, open, desert like, sandy, with single baobab trees standing majestically in the vastness...We saw so called "dustdevils", they look like little tornados that you find in deserts and open dry landscapes.
A few locals invited us to have a few beers and dinner with them in one of the villages we stayed in. We sat outside on a table with chicken and goats running around us. Two of the men spoke good English and the others sat around with us anyway. One of them brought his half chinese, half african daughter, who spoke a little English as well. A few Massai were there as well and we were soon in the middle of a vibrant village life. One drunk guy came to argue with people and everyone laughed at him. He seemed to be aware of the fact that he was playing the clown here though and somehow enjoyed the role. The Massai laughed the loudest. The Massai men have more than one wife each (one of them had 4 wifes), we never saw any of them though. The other locals we talked to were strong christian believers.
Now we are taking a rest day in a lodge just outside of Dodoma. It is nice and quiet here...time to write and read and recharge a little...

So, now it is time to write a little about our adventures in Africa...

We, that is Danny, Dylan and me are cycling through East Africa for 3 months. We started in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are going through central Tanzania to the Lake Victoria. From there may go to Burundi (we are still trying to find out whether it is safe now to go), through Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya and back into Tanzania to Dar es Salaam, where we started. So we basically make a loop around Lake Victoria. 

It's been 2 weeks tomorrow since we left Ireland. A few days in Dar es Salaam and then we started our journey towards Morogoro, the first bigger town after Dar es Salaam.
Palm, Mango and Banana trees, monkeys crossing the road, small villages of mud huts....Children and many locals are waving at us and scream "mzungu" (white person), "Mambo"(hello, how are you), "Sister", "hi, how are you? I am fine". We are the only white people here and therefore quite an attraction. We haven't been camping yet, because there are small, cheap and yet clean guesthouses in almost every town. Most evenings we get "Chicken and Chips", thats what the locals eat here. Pepsi and Fanta keep us going along the road (every little village sells them) as well as Bananas, Mangos, Oranges, cakes or bread, that we buy on the markets in the villages.