Rhino! and other traveling stories
I just returned yesterday from a 9 day East Africa journey. I have so many stories to tell, but I'll try and hit the highlights here.
We (myself and three other foreign students) took off Saturday morning at around 5 a.m. from the dorm to the bus station by tuk tuk. A tuk tuk is a small form of transport that goes about as fast as a golf cart and looks as if it flew straight off of a tilt-o-whirl. After arriving at Ubungo bus station we got on a bus for Mwanza (in Northwestern Tanzania on Lake Victoria). It took us 26 hours to arrive in our final destination and the roads were pretty horrible. We were bouncing so much that at some point I would land back on my seat with a slight headache. The journey shouldn't have taken quite so long, but at 10 p.m. we had to pull over to the side of the road because the police had reports that robbers were on the lose and would attack our bus. This meant that we all slept rather uncomfortably until 4 a.m. when the bus began to move over all of the headache inducing bumps once again.
Upon arriving in Mwanza we found out that we weren't able to head onto Kigali, Rwanda as per plan until Tuesday because of bus scheduling. We were disappointed about this, but made the most of our time in Mwanza and even did a day trip to one of the islands in Lake Victoria.
From Mwanza we went on to several small towns to make it to Kigali, Rwanda. Crossing the border should have been a scene from the Sound of Music. In order to go across the border you have to walk over a bridge next to a huge amazing waterfall. Once we got to Rwandan customs everyone was so nice and welcoming and kept saying things like "Rwanda is so safe, so beautiful!" It was instantly clear that Rwanda is much better taken care of than Tanzania. Everything is extremely clean. I later found out that every household must supply one person to clean every Saturday and this accounts for the cleanliness. While in Kigali we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It's very well done and puts an entirely different feeling on the genocide when you're not just watching Hotel Rwanda, but actually standing in the city where part of it took place. We also passed the hotel from Hotel Rwanda a few times while going around the city. Unlike Dresden, Germany which has an eery feel left over fromt he WW2 bombings, Kigali does not feel like a sad place. It's clean, developed (street LIGHTS, SIGNS, PAVEMENT!!!!) People are very friendly and it feels incredibly safe.
From Kigali our group split with two girls returning back to Dar and myself and another flying on to Arusha (near the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro). While there we went on the Ngorongoro crater safari. It is such an amazing natural formation---incredibly beautiful. and what's super exciting is that we saw a rhino up-close, which is extremely rare.
Now I'm back in Dar where it's hot and sticy. I am finishing up with finals and then I head back to the states in 17 days.
We (myself and three other foreign students) took off Saturday morning at around 5 a.m. from the dorm to the bus station by tuk tuk. A tuk tuk is a small form of transport that goes about as fast as a golf cart and looks as if it flew straight off of a tilt-o-whirl. After arriving at Ubungo bus station we got on a bus for Mwanza (in Northwestern Tanzania on Lake Victoria). It took us 26 hours to arrive in our final destination and the roads were pretty horrible. We were bouncing so much that at some point I would land back on my seat with a slight headache. The journey shouldn't have taken quite so long, but at 10 p.m. we had to pull over to the side of the road because the police had reports that robbers were on the lose and would attack our bus. This meant that we all slept rather uncomfortably until 4 a.m. when the bus began to move over all of the headache inducing bumps once again.
Upon arriving in Mwanza we found out that we weren't able to head onto Kigali, Rwanda as per plan until Tuesday because of bus scheduling. We were disappointed about this, but made the most of our time in Mwanza and even did a day trip to one of the islands in Lake Victoria.
From Mwanza we went on to several small towns to make it to Kigali, Rwanda. Crossing the border should have been a scene from the Sound of Music. In order to go across the border you have to walk over a bridge next to a huge amazing waterfall. Once we got to Rwandan customs everyone was so nice and welcoming and kept saying things like "Rwanda is so safe, so beautiful!" It was instantly clear that Rwanda is much better taken care of than Tanzania. Everything is extremely clean. I later found out that every household must supply one person to clean every Saturday and this accounts for the cleanliness. While in Kigali we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It's very well done and puts an entirely different feeling on the genocide when you're not just watching Hotel Rwanda, but actually standing in the city where part of it took place. We also passed the hotel from Hotel Rwanda a few times while going around the city. Unlike Dresden, Germany which has an eery feel left over fromt he WW2 bombings, Kigali does not feel like a sad place. It's clean, developed (street LIGHTS, SIGNS, PAVEMENT!!!!) People are very friendly and it feels incredibly safe.
From Kigali our group split with two girls returning back to Dar and myself and another flying on to Arusha (near the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro). While there we went on the Ngorongoro crater safari. It is such an amazing natural formation---incredibly beautiful. and what's super exciting is that we saw a rhino up-close, which is extremely rare.
Now I'm back in Dar where it's hot and sticy. I am finishing up with finals and then I head back to the states in 17 days.