Day 254 / 19

Date: 22 December 2022
Sleeping location: Leader’s Lodge, Kigoma, Tanzania
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 114 / 15903 / 1066*
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 2000 / 136600 / 18600
5km at: 11%
Day in three words: Human once again

*Which is appropriate because the French (Charles and Anne-Claire) arrived the next day

Breakfast was enlivened by the realisation that the finger bread rolls I’d picked up were the same size and shape as a banana, and lo the banana hot dog was born. A gift for future generations. I was up and away early because this was another big day, with the unknown time sink of border formalities in the middle. The elevation profile of the day was sort of like a crown, with a steep climb from the lake up to the highlands, undulations across the top and a steep descent back down to the lake. The climb started out ok but soon sharpened right up, before a section of 5km at an average 11% which was really, really tough. Thankfully there were few people about to make it even tougher. I had to sit down at the top (attracting the usual alien-watchers) to get my faculties back, but after that I kept pedalling hard up and down the hills to get out of this bloody place as quickly as possible. 

 

A handshake from the border guard was a little piece of humanity out of keeping with the rest of my time in Burundi, but unfortunately that wasn’t my last memory of the place. Firstly a checkpoint guard asked to see my Covid pass (to LEAVE the country), then when I began to produce one he realised he wouldn’t be able to extract a bribe and just straight up asked for money. The very last experience of Burundi was being followed up a hill to the Tanzanian entry point by someone asking for money, food and drink and then making jokes about me to his friends. My experience in a nutshell. It wasn’t the worst country of the trip - how could anything beat Egypt - but a strong second place.

After getting my Tanzanian visa I was stopped to have my bags searched half-heartedly, which I thought might be a shakedown but they just seemed mildly interested in what I was carrying. They were confused by my sun cream: “It’s sun cream”…blank looks…“to protect my skin from the sun”…blank looks…“because I am white”…sudden comprehension. I decide to test out Tanzania by stopping for lunch on a crash barrier in the middle of the first village. I am a source of interest but that's all. Kids watch but only ten and from a distance. People say hello. Nobody laughs at my weird mzungu ways, even though I make more banana hot dogs. Only one woman in fifteen minutes asks for money. I am human again and it feels like a weight has been lifted from my soul. 

The sun was out by now and it was very hot and sticky, and my body was feeling the exertions of earlier, so I just plodded steadily on. The road ran along a ridgeline with a beautiful view off to the right, the ground falling away and then rising again to green forested mountains. Occasionally people would say hello and wave or give a thumbs up. When it my descent arrived it was over all too quickly, the gradient just as steep on the way down so that I was forced to pull on the brakes (poor wasted gravitational potential energy...) to keep my speed to "just" 60kph. To earn further descents I had to go up short climbs over and over again, and by the end I felt like I'd been cheated out of my 900m. Kigoma is surprisingly sprawling and it takes ages to get to the centre, which is frustrating when I just want a shower and a sit down. But my hotel has luxuries unimaginable in Burundi: an electric shower! A random sofa! AIR CONDITIONING! Although because it is Africa the shower doesn't work all the time, the air conditioning is feeble and noisy and my food takes two hours to arrive, but I can survive that. Nobody speaks English at all. This was the case last time in Tanzania but I'd assumed it was because it was so rural there. I will have to learn some Swahili. Time for a few days’ rest and some Christmas cheer.