Slip sliding away….

Now that we have arrived in one piece, we can finally admit how we came to be here despite our solemn promises to give Burundi a wide berth. There were very few options open to us at Kigoma: 1) via cargo ship (illegally) up to Bujumbura – and Andy would have had to drug me to get me on another boat after our Liemba experience; 2) Chance our luck with los Banditos and skirt around Tanzania; or 3) hoon up and chance our luck with the roads & the stray bullets on a direct route up to Bujumbura. We had thought we could get a flight out of Kigoma but no joy. Straight answers from locals were difficult to get. The Hotel Manager in Kigoma assured us that option 3 was perfectly safe as the Tanzanian roads are monumentally crap but there were “no problems at all in Burundi…..none….well, maybe just a few….ermmm, possibly the odd stray bullet…..but not for a long time”. Fortunately, we met Maggie from the United Nations who reassured us that the UN only took option 2 in an armed convey with military backup in a 4WD and radio contact all the way because of the bandits and that the option 3 would be best - the UN were about to down grade security on that road. So, off we went with a recommended taxi driver and slipped and slid our way through appalling roads out of Tanzania. It was like driving through porridge and after our second breakdown, it’s a real shame we didn’t get the picture of the entire village trying to push our car up one of the numerous hills. After 10 hours, and not that many kilometres, we reached the Burundian border and gave a huge sigh of relief at the sight of the tarred road. The drive up to Bujumbura itself was stunning. Very lush green steep hills with roads and hairpin bends even the Swiss would be proud of. The route took us along the shores of Lake Tanganika, where we saw hippos basking in the sunset and then we finally arrived after 14 hours and 500km in Bujumbura.