The Tanzanian Catapult

I've changed my route to Uganda to be more direct. I cut straight through Tanzania and now approach Uganda from the south west. It was nice to avoid Dar and Nairobi all together. My new route is Malawi-Morogoro-Dodoma-Mwanza-Bukoba-Uganda and I planned to go by both train and ferry, but the rail line from Dodoma to Mwanza is on strike.

My destinations in Tanzania have been the largest urban centers which I've visited in Africa each bigger than the last - its all come as a bit of a shock.

Dodoma

Tanzania's political capitol, it is in an arid region at the geographic center of the country. I found real ice cream. I met a man named Moses at the bus station. We got to talking and I eventually accepted an invitation to join him at his home for dinner. Turns out that his brother is on scholarship at UBC in Vancouver for computer science. Small world. We discussed Tanzanian life, religion, and politics over rice and beans with his sister and two cousins in their middleclass home. Afterward, Moses dropped me at my hostel and picked me up again in the morning for a tour of the city: we went to visit his friend living in the slums; went to the market; and took a tour of Tanzania's parliament buildings. At noon, Moses escorted me to the safest and most reliable bus company, gave me parting gifts of fruit and drink, and left special instruction with the bus attendee so as to ensure that I find my way.

I have never known hospitality like this. Perhaps this statement is exaggerated as my perception is no doubt skewed by the overwhelming contrasts between Moses and Malawians. Regardless, I am warmed.

Mwanza

Mwanza is Tanzania's second largest city. It is positioned on the shores of Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile and second largest lake in the world. I disembarked from the bus at the stroke of midnight to a hoard of prospective taxi drivers and food vendors. I was swarmed and my pack was grabbed up. I defended and aired OK, but thought I was going to be killed when three men escorted me down a dark alley to the hostel.

Mwanza has been the least becoming place that I've visited. The land and lake are ubiquitous polluted, and I witnessed people defecating directly into the rotting garbage piles which lie just a couple meters from the city's food markets. I walked for a half hour along the shores of Lake Victoria to try to find a nice spot to sit, but the best I managed was to elevate myself slightly above the persistent filth on a pier. On the positive side, the people are pleasant, there are beauty rock forms, and the fruit is amazing - Tanzania stands alone so far for fruit. Today I consumed a bunch of concord grapes, a mango, an avocado, a cucumber, a pineapple, and six tomatoes. The diarrhea was semi-intense.

Bukoba

I took the overnight boat over Lake Victoria to Bukoba. First and second sleeping classes were fully booked, so my only option was to head down into the ship's basement. Seating was pretty crowded so I followed somebody's lead and climbed into the baggage compartments overhead, unrolled my camping mattress, and slept. Was a comfortable night cept for the medal bar in my spine and a few cockroaches.

In the morning, I partnered with some folks from Czech and hired a whole matatu for a comfortable ride into Uganda.

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All in all, I've had 55 hours on buses making for four long travel days (and one rest day in Mwanza). I found the ordeal exhausting, painful, and unrewarding. The road gets so bumpy that it prevents me from holding a book still enough to read, and I visibly bruised my tailbone. I does not feel good to simply drive past Kilimanjaro, the Indian ocean, Serengeti Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Tanganyika, and Jane Goodall's Gombe Stream (aka places I want to go), and I often have a deep longing to step off the bus. I am finding myself impatient with people, and suffering hugely from the language barriers caused by Western Tanzania's use of Swahili instead of English. I'm very tired of this. Next sabbatical I would fly over Tanzania.

This video from my friend Bort succinctly sums up how I felt during this leg of the journey:


I planned to go west to resume independent travel - but Kampala is just 100km from here. Why not check out what Shannon has going on at the grounds of the Mengo Hospital?