Tanzania via Burundi

Wednesday 30^th January

We spent our last night in Rwanda camping in yet another hotel car park near the Burundi border. Like Uganda and Ethiopia, Rwanda has no campsites as such and the best you get is being allowed to stay in the car park of a lodge or hotel but have the use of the bathroom and other facilities.

Burundi was always intended to be a waypoint for us simply to get from Rwanda back into Tanzania so we never intended to spend much time there. Like Rwanda, the country is very small (28,000 sq km) and can at a push be crossed in a day. On top of this, we were only granted a three day transit visa at the border, so we literally only had sufficient time to pass through the country.

The landscape is very similar to Rwanda, hilly, green, yet slightly more disorganised. Its major landmark is Lake Tanganyika, which runs along its entire eastern border (and continues along neighbouring Tanzania in the south forming it’s entire eastern border as well).

We spent Saturday night camped in the grounds of a very nice lodge (Pinacle 11) which is located just beyond the outskirts of Bujumbura (the capital city) on the most northern shore of the lake. Although the view was not that spectacular in itself, the setting certainly was, ‘sitting’ in the middle of the Great African Rift Valley with mountains on both sides of us (DRC to the right) and the entire length of the lake stretched out before us (all 680 km of it!).

We then travelled most of Sunday, heading south along the Lake shore towards the Tanzanian border. We were tempted to visit the southernmost source of the Nile in the south of Burundi (where it is nothing more than a trickle) but were deterred by stories that the rangers there may take your money but may not actually take you to the real source (but to a more accessible ‘alternative’). So we decided to give it a miss.

Sunday night was spent at yet another car park of a lakeside lodge; a lovely lodge with a spectacular view, but hopefully the last car park for a while since all the countries south of us cater for campers.

We crossed into Tanzania on Monday and headed straight for a camp just south of Kigoma (Jacobson’s camp) and what bliss to be able to make a fire and cook our own food again.  The camp is situated right on the water edge of Lake Tanganyika and we had our own little beach to ourselves where we spent our first night braaing a local fish (a Kahue) bought from a passing fisherman. Absolutely delicious! From here we also had our first glimpse of the MV Liemba, a ship I will tell you more about later on.

Sunday 3^rd February

We ended up staying at Jacobsen’s camp far longer than originally intended and only left on Thursday, continuing along the road heading south along the lake. During our stay at Jacobsen’s we visited one of the main tourist attractions in the area in a town called Ujiji, where the historic meeting between Livingstone and Stanley took place in 1972 (Stanley supposedly having greeted Livingstone after a two year search for his whereabouts ‘Mr. Livingstone, I presume’).

From Kigoma, the road continues south but heads inland so we didn’t see the lake again for several days. We rattled along on tracks which were mostly dirt road and in some places would have been impassable had it been raining. There are very few settlements along the way and the countryside is mostly indigenous bush.

We reached ‘Riverside camp’ after an eight hour trip covering no more than 150 km (!). This camp is on the edge of a national park called Katavi. The campsite itself is located on the park’s boundry, separated from it by a river which at this point forms a large pool and as we drove in we were greeted by the sight of about 10 hippos lazing in the pool. We could walk right up to about 20m from where they were and watch them which was a real treat (and were watched in return as in the picture above).

We spent the next day in Katavi game park which is mostly inaccessible in the rainy season but because the tracks were reasonably dry we decided to risk it and ended up having a great day with many sightings of yet more hippo, an enormous herd of approximately 600 buffalo, six females lions resting under a tree by the side of the track and many others. This could be our last game park for Don and myself on this trip so it made it extra special for us.

We left yesterday to continue our journey south. Our next destination was a Lodge we had heard about from other travellers, located on the lake, called Lakeside Lodge. It is an absolute jewel in every possible way. As you drive in you are greeted by a sign saying: ‘Come as a guest, leave as a friend’, and that pretty much sums it up.

The whole place is designed with an African Zen touch and after having been ‘roughing it’ (and loving it!) for the last eight months, it feels like total luxury. This is probably the first time on this trip where I haven’t had to keep my flip-flops on to shower. We are camped right on the Lake under a huge Mango tree and out of one ‘bedroom window’ we can see the lake and the other three are surrounded by the tree.

I think I have posted enough sunsets in previous blogs, so I have decided to show you some pictures of our beautiful Zen bathroom:

fresh flowers in the toilets!

 Thursday, 7^th February

Well, we are still here at Lakeside Lodge!

The moment was always going to come where we (Ian & Heather, Don & I) would go our separate ways and gradually our conversations around the fire have changed from ‘Where shall we go tomorrow?’ to ‘What was your best/worst moment, experience’ etc.  So we decided that this is the place where we will part company and head in different directions, Ian and Heather (who still have four months of their travel time left to burn) towards Malawi, Don and myself starting our long trip (3,000 km) back to South Africa before flying back to the UK. We have decided to travel via Zambia (which should be quicker than travelling through Malawi), then stop at Al and Joy’s in Zimbabwe for a couple of days before driving on to Johannesburg and finally Durban.

But there is one more adventure we are going to embark on together and that is to take a cruise on Lake Tanganyika on the MV Liemba starting at midnight tonight. With there being no roads or tracks to speak of along the entire lake, the Liemba is the only lifeline many villages have with the outside world. It runs the entire length of the Lake (starting in Zambia and ending in Burundi) once a week, stopping at several small ports along the way. The ship is too large to dock so everything is ferried  to it by small boats and passed up into the ship, apparently quite a spectacle.

We don’t know what to expect since this steamer not only carries people but also livestock and just about anything that needs to be transported up and down the lake. It is also nearly 100 years old and has already spent 10 years at the bottom of the lake after it was deliberately sunk by the Germans (who owned it) rather than let if fall into enemy hands. In 1927 it was brought up from the bottom of the Lake and has been doing it’s weekly journey ever since.

We have booked a the VIP suite (just in case!) and I have packed my tiara and evening gown and Don his tuxedo, so Ben and Lyn, this could either be the beginning or the end of our cruising experiences.

We will keep you posted when we get back on Sunday!