Real African Bus Travel

We are in Rwanda at the moment, getting here by bus was a mission, here is an entry from my diary from Mwanzw to Kigali.

We got up at 3:30am, got ready and made our way downstairs to find ourselves locked in the hotel, luckily the security guard quickly let us out and our taxi driver was waiting for outside asleep in his car. We got to the bus station at 4:30am then had to wait around as usual for the bus to turn up. Eventually the bus arrived at the bus station and due to the 20 or so other buses already in the bus station it struggled to find a place to park. After following it around the bus station with our packs on and all it finally decided on a place to stop. Somehow the bus already seemed full and their were lot's of people still needing to board, us included. I don't know where all the other people boarded since the bus started in journey in Mwanza.

A guy looking a little bit more like a conductor than the rest of the people on the bus hopped off, we showed him our tickets and he gave a new seat allocation n1 and n2...bugger! That was on the back seat. We had the back seat on our journey from Arusha to Mwanza a 12 hours bus trip where we spent most of the time with our butts airborne than on the seats. Anyway I prepared myself to be rattled around again. I was a little concerned that the conductor wasn't interested in our backpacks at that point, but we soon realised we just needed to sqeeze on, packs and all...not that there was room. For some stupid reason some people decided getting off the bus at the point when other are trying to get on is a good idea so climbing up the stairs was slow and hard work.

There were already lots of bags and people crammed into the isle and I could barely get up the stairs let alone stand in the isle. I just had to hang off the ralings or seats to could manage to grab with my pack still on as there was no room to put it down.

Nick got very assertive at that point and asked everyone to move down a little, which worked and I eventually has some room to take my heavy pack off. A relief I can tell you! At that point I thought we would have to stand, but we soon realised the conductor had cleared our designated seated on the back seat. Nick picked up his bag and successfully naviagted it around the small boy crammed in the isle, but I struggled to lift it over his head and got sone help. Our packs were wedged into the isle and we took our seats.

Anyway, after a hour and a bit late, a policemen got on the bus ranted and raved about the overcrowding, all the people in the isle got off and we were on our way. We drove out of the bus station, round the corner and stopped to pick up all the people that had gotten off after the policemen had his say.

We drove for a short distance and had to get off to catch a ferry over Lake Victoria. It was already a welcome break from the bus. On the other side we hopped back into the bus literally climbing over the seat rests and piles of bags in the isle to cram ourselves into the back seat again.

We stopped in most of the small villages we drove past where more people were waiting to board the bus! It seemed very random, but sometimes they would sqeeze on and sometimes not. In one crazy town we saw another coach that had a lounge suite strapped to the top of the bus...Nick and I thought they should strap it on the rigt way up and charge 1st class rates for fully airconditioned comfortable seats. At this stop a bicycle was strapped to the under side of our bus and Nick noticed that some fish had been tied and were dangling onto the outside of the bus. We were surprised that it made it the wole way...we checked when we hopped off, we were expecting to see some fish heads and some fish bones hanging off, but they were ok...a little dusty and very tenderised from all the flapping on the side of the bus though.

So each time we stopped we managed to somehow squeeze a few more on. There had to be at least 110 or more...it was supposed to fit about 70 only! By the end of our trip there were people standing in the isle, some sitting on the luggage, some sitting on the head rests even, one of the conductors had to climb in our window and sit straddled across the head rests at the back and the other was hanging off the side.

After 8 hours of travelling 380km's (due to the many stops for pick-ups and police check points...where I'm sure they got fines or paid bribes) we reached Benako...the second last stop near the Rwandan boarder. We had no way of exiting by the stairs so our only option was to climb out the window. I went first, my climbing being very rusty I fell and bashed and bruised my arms on the way down. Nick dislodged our packs and lowered them down to me and climbed out too.

We were a little fed up with being packed in like a sardine so we forked out a little extra for a private taxi to the Tanzanian and Rwandan boarder. We got through immagration no worries and walked the 1 km between the countries at Rosumo falls. It's amasing how different places can be due to arbitary lines drawn on a map. Rwanda was instantly much calmer, everything was cleaner and neater, the were all less in your face and very well dressed. The minivan we got on in Rwanda was new and very swish and everyone had there own seats...it was another world away to Tanzania.

We have spent the last 2 weeks in Rwanda and it has been great...my favaurite spot so far. More about that later.