Over the border - 6 hours, my ass!

  Ngara, Tanzania
Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Welcome to the Tanzania section - click on the links to go to a particular section, otherwise read on below:

~ Serengeti
~ Ngorongoro Crater
~ Dar es Salaam
~ Pemba Island
~ TAZARA


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Day the Thirty-sixth - in which we nearly get stranded at the border, and Tanzania scores 2 points straight off.

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Up to pack and move out, though not particularly early [by this we mean we got up at 6.30am. Haha reading back when we are home, this is going to sound hilarious]. We are aiming for Mwanza in north-west Tanzania, on the south shore of Lake Victoria, but there is no way we'd get there today. Instead we aimed for a town called Ngara in the very corner of NW Tanzania, near the Rwanda and Burundi borders. Neither the Bradt Rwanda guidebook nor the Lonely Planet Tanzania one have much info about the area or the crossing. We were lead to believe that Ngara was a 6 hour trip from the border.

We walked over to the Okapi bus depot to find the bus to Rusumo Falls [the border post town] left at 9am. In an experimental pre-enactment of the seating arrangements it was established that our bags were too big. They wanted us to pay 50% more, effectively paying for 3 seats. So we asked to buy 3 tickets - one each for us and one for one for both of our bags, Stef's on the floor, mine on the seat. It was a minibus with bench-type seats so we only did so on the condition that we really were buying 3 seats.

The waiting time meant we could leave our bags at the depot and go find some breakfast. We found a café that did nice omelettes and coffee for Stef. We also bought bread and bananas - the usual journey fare.

Then back to the bus for a slight scuffle with the driver/ticket dude/whoever it was. As we'd expected, as soon as us and our bags were in the '3 seats' another guy was squished in beside me. They want to squish - fine. This is Africa after all. And we've heard Tanzanian dalla-dallas [minibuses] are really packed. But if they're gonna have 3 people on the seat regardless of our bags, we're not paying for the invisible 4th seat. We told them as much and, in a moment that endeared the people of Rwanda to our hearts forever, the rest of the bus agreed with us and demanded the extra passenger get off and have his ticket refunded.

Then we were off. It isn't far [Rwanda is small enough that getting anywhere on the main roads doesn't take long] so we were there for 1pm. Rusumo Falls is so called because the border follows the course of the Akagera River for part of its length, and at Rusumo there is a waterfall. Apparently this is the waterfall where Fergal Keane watched as bodies floated out of Rwanda during the genocide. It's not particularly big or special, but it's a waterfall so we took pictures over the side of the bridge.




We were dropped off and had to walk the no-mans land between the immigration posts. We exchanged the last of our Rwandan francs for Tanzanian shillings and got stamped out of Rwanda. On the Tanzanian side there's a medium sized hill that the road climbs. We walked up it with our bags in the heat of the day and presented ourselves panting at the Tanzanian customs office. The border isn't heavily used and we saw no traffic go past in either direction during our processing and wait. We used the opportunity to go to the bathroom and cool down in the shade. Then we walked up the deserted road a little to find... nothing. No bus station or taxi rank or poda-podas or anything. Hmm.

After a short wait an ordinary car appeared and we asked the driver if we could get a lift to Ngara. We chose Ngara since it's apparently one of the best places from which to get onward transport to Mwanza. Benako is another.
Not having any handle on the new currency we had to guess whether the price offered was decent. We weren't helped by the fact that we were judging the price according to a distance far greater than it actually turned out to be. As I wrote in my journal - 6 hours, my ass!

The route took us back down toward the border and across the Akagera river. It's always nice to start a new country with an exciting experience. The barge thing across the river was a simple flat affair with no sides and a pulley line pushed by a man with bare feet. We drove on, got out, waved goodbye to Rwanda, and then walked/drove off the other side. Pretty cool really.










The rest of the route wound its way around the dry hills, the car coping very well with the dirt road and going a quite a clip. We were in Ngara in no time at all. We're not sure if we paid the driver the whole amount. There was some confusion where he offered part now/part later a la Obi Wan and Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina. But then he drove off before any of us remembered.

Anyway, first port of call was the bus 'depot' to arrange passage to Mwanza. I should probably clarify - when I refer to bus/minibus depots in smaller places [and even big places sometimes] I mean nothing more than a small building or shack. The place the bus leaves from is either the road outside or some patch of bare earth nearby. I guess when you leave before it gets light you don't need to have a proper station.

The bus to Mwanza is currently broken. Ah. Here's the first bump in our plan. We were told than if we got a bus to Kahama [a place in the north-west interior] we could get another one on to Mwanza from there. Kahama is in the right general direction [east] and besides, where else are we going to go? So we agreed. I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Ngara is a proper one-horse town. We found a decent place to sleep [as often is, judged on the coolness of their soft drinks] and then wandered around the town. Or village is more accurate. This took us all of 5 minutes, so we returned via a pineapple stall where the woman who owned it kindly cut one up into manageable sized pieces. One of the tastiest juiciest pineapples ever, me thinks. We also found a tiny restaurant where we were handed a menu in the typical pointless African town gesture. You get what they give you; what they have in, not a choice from the menu. Meat - possibly zebu - and rice. Simple but tasty, and a damn sight better than ugali. Yey, another point for Tanzania!

Then to bed. We asked to be let our early tomorrow morning so we'll see how that goes.