Today we crossed the Equator! Yeeha!
Did the water swirling experiment in the northern and southern hemispheres - quite impressive to witness with my own eyes... I will post a video clip at some point after we get home.
But before that, we travelled through Burundi and Rwanda.
In Kigoma we decided we would head up to Burundi, in stead of heading up the B8. The road was pretty crap, yet a lot better than the previous couple of days...
We almost missed the Tanzanian border - well, actually we did! They are working on the road all the way from Kigoma, some day soon it will be tarred... Below you can see how deep they cut the new road into the hill... as we came whizzing by, the guys along the road went crazy and the scooters hooted furiously.. I knew something was up. We stopped and turned around and they kindly pointed out that this indeed was the border...
First time we ever needed to climb a make-shift ladder to get to a border custom's building ;-)
Burundi is a beautiful country, but very poor. According to wikipedia, it has the (or one of the) lowest per capita GDP of all the countries in the World!
We had a slightly uneasy feeling in Burundi. As we would drive by, people would shout at us (unlike the obviously friendly chanting and whistling in other countries), and the body language that accompanied this didn't seem to friendly either... Never the less, we had absolutely no problems in Burundi.
We spent the night in a hotel in Bujumbura, right on the Tanganyika lake. The ride toward the Rwanda border was great, more that can be said for the road - the road is not to bad, but in a coupel of years there will be no more tar road... the further north you get the longer the ripped up streches become.. and in the south, potholes are filled with rocks. We drove by a stone mason, chipping away at some stones to get the best possible fit of the rocks that are packed into the potholes!
Once we crossed into the border, it was a completely different story! Rwanda was a pleasant surprise... the roads was well maintained and the stretch between the Burundi border and Kigale was scenic and twisty and it reminded me of the Blue Ridge Parkway...
Rwanda is a remarkable country - clean and safe! We spent the morning at the Genocide Memorial and Museum. I cannot find the words to describe the feelings you have while you are reading the history, and watching some of the video stories and interviews... It is truly amazing to see the level of integration, peace and reconciliation within this nation...
Once we crossed into Uganda, we realized we were back in the standard east African pothole mania - with one difference - the drivers are getting worse! Much worse! Remember Rule 1??? It seems that the drivers have an absolute disregard for any road rules or sense of responsibility. The scenes on the road are something to behold.. turned over trucks, a container on its side across one side of the road, not to mention the numerous oncoming vehicles in your lane! On several occasions we had to scurrel off the road surface to accommodate some IDIOT coming straight for us! And don't think they would budge, speed up or correct their error in judgment. No, they just flash their lights at you, which apparently means: "get out of my *#^#@*$ way!"
And then I haven't mentioned Kampala yet... what a dump and the traffic (well, the drivers) are ignorant dumb idiots... If I ever find myself in Kampala again.. it will be to soon!
Of course all of this traveling does not come without a tad of humor. This morning just after having crossed into Uganda, I was about to pass a truck, when it swerved sharply to the road edge, and came to halt.. as I was passing, a truck wheel came rolling by the front of the truck... across the road and into the bush!