It took about six days and several bus rides to travel from Matema in southwest Tanzania to Bujumbura, Burundi. Sorry there aren't many photos to accompany this post but as you read, I'm sure you'll understand why I wasn't snapping pictures.

Matema to Mbeya

I was planning to get up around 4am in order to catch the first dala dala at 5am but my digital watch suddenly decided it no longer wanted to cooperate. My watch was my only alarm so my backup plan was threefold: go to sleep early, set my mental alarm, and drink a lot of water right before bed. It worked and I woke up around 2am. It was a long morning but uneventful and I made it to Mbeya a little before noon.

Mbeya to Mpanda

I knew this would be a long bus ride and I was not mistaken. To catch the 6am bus, I used my threefold approach again and ended up wide awake around 1am. Unfortunately, I don't have a snooze button so once I'm awake, it's too risky to go back to sleep!

The bus was crammed full. In a row of three seats, there might be three adults, a couple of babies and/or toddlers, luggage, and the odd chicken, plus the aisle was absolutely jam packed with standing passengers. How these people managed to stand for the duration I'll never know. The bus stopped frequently to pick up more passengers from the side of the road.

We had to switch buses in a town called Sumbawanga which made me think of that 1990s band, Chumbawumba, and their nonsensical but catchy song, “Tubthumping.” Ali, the conductor on the new bus, took a shining to me and made sure to tell me to look for wild animals when we passed through Kitavali National Park. Unfortunately, we were so far behind schedule by the time we got there that it was pitch dark out and I ended up sleeping through most of the park. The 12-14 hour scheduled ride took about seventeen hours. I already knew which hotel I wanted to go to in Mpanda but Ali said it was a five minute taxi ride away. Instead he took me to a clean guest house just a short walk from the bus stop and in the center of town. It was close to midnight by the time I was ready for bed and turned out the light.

Ali had said he wasn't scheduled to return to Sumbawanga until noon the following day but when I got up the next morning he was gone, having to work the 6am bus after all. I spent the day catching up on sleep, reading, and buying my bus ticket for the following day.

Mpanda to Kigoma…but really to Uvinza

My watch was working but I didn't dare press any buttons, like setting the alarm, for fear it would die completely on me so I used my tried and true threefold approach to wake me up. I guess I hadn't figured out exactly how much water to drink as I always seemed to wake up at 1am. At least I was at the bus stop in good time for the 6am bus. Unfortunately, the bus itself wasn't. Nope, and there was still no sign of the bus at 9am.

I found a woman who spoke a little English and asked if she knew what was happening. She said the bus might come at 10am. Hmmm. She found a man who spoke better English and asked him to keep me informed. This guy had euro symbols all over his belt, so I nicknamed him Kaka Euro (kaka means brother in Swahili). Kaka Euro was either a leader or a rabble rouser–I couldn't tell since I don't speak Swahili! He was always at the center of a shifting group of people, yelling and arguing. He lead a charge of a dozen passengers to the police station two or three times and he argued intently with a guy from the bus company several times. I chose to stick near the original woman I had spoken with because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be associated with Kaka Euro! The woman, who I just called Dada (sister), helped me order lunch around noon. It was something I had never tried before: a french fry omelet with ketchup. It came in a plastic bag and a toothpick.

I was starting to fall asleep because it was so hot out and I'd been awake since 1am. I was about to tell Dada I was going back to my hotel and that I'd just try to catch a bus tomorrow when the bus suddenly appeared! It was 1:22pm, over seven hours late. Kaka Euro told me the bus wouldn't leave for awhile yet because the conductor was in jail! He had had the conductor arrested because the conductor refused to refund the passengers' money if the bus didn't leave for Kigoma today! By the time the conductor was released and the bus had been loaded with passengers and luggage (and chickens), it was after 2pm, but the first hour was spent going from the ticket office to the bus station to the gas station, so we didn't actually get on the highway until 3pm, a full nine hours late for an 8-10 hour bus ride. Sheesh.

My assigned seat was in the dead last row, which was not dissimilar to being in the last car of a roller coaster. We felt all of the bumps and accelerations much more intensely than the rest of the bus and had to hold on so as to not go flying! Everyone in my row had a different strategy for holding on. I held the seat in front of me with my arms crossed in an X as this helped my arms fit in the tight space and kept my daypack securely on my lap. The woman on my far right leaned her head against the seat in front of her like you see in the crash position on airplane safety cards. The man next to me was wedged in so tightly due to a young man sitting between his legs that he couldn't move even if he wanted to. Another man gripped the rails of the overhead luggage rack like monkey bars. Still, despite our precautions, we all got some air time!

After a few hours, enough passengers got off that I moved to sit next to Kaka Euro.

We pulled into Uvinza around 9:30pm, still about five hours from Kigoma. There was a lot of commotion, none of which I understood. Dada explained that the bus would continue to Kigoma in the morning and that I should follow her to a guest house. We stop off to pick up dinner–another french fry omelet with ketchup in a plastic bag. For some reason, this ketchup tastes a lot like ketchup chips, which I love, and these eggs were soft and fluffy so this omelet was even better than the one I had at lunch. This guy could be a short order cook in a Bronx bodega, preparing egg and cheese sandwiches for hungry high schoolers. (Note that the green fork is my own. I passed on using the toothpick this time.)

My room was reasonably clean. There was no running water so the extension cord bundled in the sink didn't worry me. I was sporting a good layer of dust and dirt, so I took a cold bucket bath and got into bed. I was debating whether or not I should read when the power went out. I took it as a sign to go to sleep!

Uvinza to Kigoma

Dada banged on my door at 5am. The power was still out so I used my trusty headlamp and got ready in just a few minutes. Many people had spent the night on the bus, including lots of children and babies. It was a bit after 6am by the time the bus rolled out of Uvinza and we arrived in Kigoma about five hours later.

Once I checked in to my guest house, I tried to clean up as best I could. My backpack was covered in dirt and I wasn't much better!

In town, I walked to Lake Tanganyika, the largest lake in Africa. It was nice but it really just looked like any other lake!

I passed an empty lot where some goats were grazing. The goats all suddenly started to make their terrible bleating sound so I looked up and saw a zebra was casually strolling onto their turf to eat!

I realized I hadn't seen any white people since Matema when a white couple walked into a store and I did a double take. I had gotten so used to being the only mzungu that it now felt like my stage name!

For dinner I had yet another french fry omelet at a bar next to my guesthouse since it was the only thing on the menu. As I ate, I watched a Barclay's Premiership match on TV with about forty very passionate and football-crazy Tanzanian men.

Kigoma to Bujumbura

I was excited today because I would finally reach my destination! To do so, I got a dala dala to Manyovu which was less than two hours away, but I had to wait for the dala dala to have enough passengers to leave. This took close to two hours in itself! Luckily, I learned how to wait for share taxis to corral enough passengers when I lived in Uzbekistan so it wasn't a big deal.

Next I took a motorcycle taxi the last few kilometers to the Tanzanian immigration office. When I told the immigration officers I was traveling around east Africa, one of them asked if I was going to the Congo. I said I wasn't planning to and he said something to the effect of I wasn't going there because I was concerned about safety. Really, it's because I think I am going to enough countries and I'll save the DRC for another trip, but he started to say that as long as I have Jesus in my heart, I should be ready to die. There are few things I hate as much as discussing religion with strangers but I couldn't seem to get out of this conversation! They all kept insisting I should be ready to die at any moment, even right now, until finally I pointed out that my mother would be really sad if I died right now. They all have mothers, too, and that did the trick. I got my stamped passport back and left!

I got in a share taxi to cross into Burundi. There was a small road sign that read, “Burundi,” and the paved road turned into a dirt one. The sudden change made me think of that cartoon snowing the American side of the border as hot and sunny while the Canadian side was covered in snow and ice. Anyway, I got my three day transit visa for Burundi and the taxi took us to the market where I caught a dala dala the last few hours to Bujumbura. It was a scenic ride along the coast of Lake Tanganyika as we passed through fishing villages and people walking along the road on their Sunday best on their way to church. One last taxi ride from the bus station to my hotel and I had finally arrived in Bujumbura!

4:45am: alarm goes off

5:30am: in a taxi to Dar Es Salaam's Ubungo bus terminal

5:55am: help a jet lagged and overwhelmed German couple find their bus company

6:05am: buses bolt out of the station like lightning and almost run over a young girl. Passersby chastise the girl

6:15am: find my bus company to take me to the bus as its far too hectic to figure out which bus is mine

6:30am: things being sold through the bus windows: loaves of white bread, perfumes, sunglasses, newspapers, gum, water, wallets, self help and how to books, and lanyard name tags

6:47am: bus departs to Mbeya. The trip should take 12-14 hours

8:00am: snack

9:00am: stare out the window

10:30am: stop at a collection of stalls so passengers can buy food and use the bathroom

11:30pm: drive through Mikumi National Park where I spot giraffe, buffalo, dik diks, antelope, vultures, and I think maybe an elephant

1:00pm: Pole pole. This bus seems to have two speeds: slow and slower. It is tedious and there are plenty of hills yet to come

1:30pm: pick up speed going downhill. Rear end car in front of us. Fortunately everyone is ok though the car's rear windshield is completely shattered. The car and bus drive an hour to the nearest police station where we wait an hour for paperwork to be completed before we resume our slow drive

4:00pm: lunch at a rest stop. I have an omelet which is pretty good so I decide to get a second omelet to go. If you are looking for a challenge, I cannot recommend enough eating an omelet out of a paper bag

5:40pm: arrive in Iringa which is 5-6 hours away from our final destination

6:30pm: sunset

6:45pm: total darkness. Roads in Tanzania don't have lights

7:00pm: the paved road ends and now we are on dirt roads

9:00pm: we are still hours from Mbeya. I try to nap

10:00pm: our bus is still excruciatingly slow and another bus from the same company is now pacing us in case we break down. They announce we can move to the other bus if we like as it is less crowded. My seatmate, a foreigner who I'd known before today's tedious bus ride and had planned to take me to a good hotel he knew because he grew up in Mbeya, switches to the other bus. He assures me the two buses will arrive in Mbeya simultaneously. I don't believe it for a second but I stay on the original bus because my backpack is in the hold underneath and I tell myself he will wait for me if he arrives first.

11:52pm: arrive Mbeya, just over 17 hours after departing Dar. I am tired but happy to be off the bus. Even better, I see the second bus pull up almost immediately so I join the crowd to retrieve my backpack.

12:10am: I can't find my travel companion

12:20am: I find a kind woman who speaks English and she asks the second bus's conductor in Swahili where my travel companion is. The conductor says the guy got off the bus twenty kilometers before Mbeya.

12:25am: the really nice English speaking woman lets me borrow her cell phone so I can call my travel companion. No answer. I am on my own.

12:30am: weigh my options. I do have a guide book but it is in digital format and it doesn't seem like a good idea to take out my iPad so I don't know the name of any hotels. Anyway, the only taxi drivers left by now are sketchy and I don't feel comfortable getting into a car with any of them and just saying to take me to a hotel. Best course of action is to stick with this nice English speaking Tanzanian woman and her friend.

12:40am: a few doors over from the bus ticket office is a dodgy looking hotel called the Ten Commandments Inn. There is no room at the inn. We resign ourselves to spending the night at the outdoors bus station. The best spot is right in front of the bus ticket office because the lights are on and there are employees present, but the area is already overflowing with people and luggage.

12:45am: the three of us are utterly exhausted from the bus ride and at the prospect of sitting outside in the cold night. We all burst out laughing and that releases some tension we've been feeling.

12:50am: we pick a spot that is partially illuminated and has a ledge to sit on. I wrap myself in my sarong and huddle over backpack and try both to sleep and not to sleep.

Somehow, the hours pass. People talk, babies cry, the occasional radio plays. It's a cold night. I don't sleep.

5:40am: my new friends have a 6am bus connection so they try to figure out what to do with me as the sun isn't up yet and they don't want to leave me alone.

5:45am: they decide to get me a cab that has just dropped someone off, thereby avoiding the sketchy drivers. They tell the cabbie what hotel to take me to. I thank the women profusely. I don't think I was ever in any real danger, but bus stations in the middle of the night aren't safe places no matter where you are in the world, especially when you don't speak the language and everyone had noticed me as the only foreigner there, which didn't help me feel at ease. It made all the difference in the world to know they were looking out for me, even if my supposed travel companion had decided to abandon me without warning.

5:46am: I get in the cab to go to the hotel. The cab drives maybe two hundred meters! I feel stupid for having been so close to a hotel all night long but, in my defense, it wasn't visible from the bus station and it still would have been a sketchy walk in the dark with my big backpack.

5:47am: the hotel is full. I have been awake for about 25 consecutive hours now so I just collapse in the lobby and prepare to fall asleep.

5:48am: the receptionist takes pity on me and says I can take a room that was vacated just 20 minutes ago but it hasn't been made up yet. This is the best news all day!

5:49am: I brush my teeth, dig out my sleep sheet from my backpack and get into my own sheet and fall asleep in seconds!

I knew I'd have to leave my quiet beach sooner or later, so when the time came, I caught a dala dala to Stone Town. Dala dalas are local buses and there seems to be a few different vehicles types. In Zanzibar the dala dalas are like pick up trucks with an extended bed where low benches line the sides and a short roof offers protection from the sun and low branches. Now that I think about it, the roof is where all the cargo goes: furniture, sacks of food, gas canisters, you name it.

On this particular morning, we stopped to pick up about fifteen bundles of what I presumed to be fire wood. The conductor quickly clamored up to the roof, secured the bundles, and we were on our way again. It was mid morning, so the dala dala never got packed, unlike an earlier trip when I counted twenty five passengers including a ten year old boy who fell asleep leaning on me, not to mention everyone's luggage and parcels, and the conductor hanging off the back of the dala dala! I was jammed into the dreaded corner so tightly that my feet and legs went completely asleep! I was a little concerned how I'd be able to move when we reached my stop, but fortunately I had regained enough sensation in my limbs to walk without tripping over myself and landing in a ditch. But on this morning trip to town, I had plenty of space and the only mishap occurred when one of the wood bundles fell off the roof and we had to back up so the poor conductor could pick up all of the sticks that now lay scattered across the road. This adventure took about ninety minutes altogether and cost about $1.25.

In Stone Town, I bid farewell to Zanzibar and caught the ferry to Dar es Salaam. Once every year or two, some overcrowded Zanzibar ferry inevitably sinks, tragically resulting in hundreds of casualties. A ferry sank earlier this year. One company is known to have a clean safety record, so I made sure to travel with them. The ferry was large and modern with comfortable seats. I managed to sleep for most of the two and a half hour trip, though I did wake up when the water grew choppier and many of the passengers around me were making use of their seasickness bags. I knew I'd be ok so long as I didn't see or hear what was happening around me so I grabbed my iPod and watched the Wesley Snipes boxing/prison movie on the TV for the last forty five minutes.

Over the past few days in Dar, I've run lots of errands, most of which involved the Internet. Since I never know when I'll next have wifi access, I took advantage of a local cafe's wifi and downloaded several ebooks and podcasts and uploaded Kilimanjaro photos to Dropbox. I also met up with a new friend, taking five buses for the round trip journey which cost a grand total of ninety five cents.

When possible, I try to practice my limited Swahili. I know a few basic greetings, courtesies, and numbers. Today I added “stop” (“shosha”) to my repertoire after hearing it repeatedly on the bus.

The plan is to head to Mbeya next. Located in the southwest corner of Tanzania, Mbeya is, according to Lonely Planet, a “thriving town” nestled between two mountain ranges and near Lake Nyasa (also known as Lake Malawi). I'll let you know how things go in Mbeya!