The 1000 Day Holiday

Headed up into the mountains near Kili for a few days hiking.

Its weird. I get all excited when i see mountains. Maybe its a homely thing.

Funny being in the middle of nowhere. hiking up a road, we pass a group of kids who in a perfect british english accent say “Good afternoon sir”. Followed by “This is a blackboard, this is a chair, this is a door” repeatedly until we are out of earshot.

Did three days hiking from Lushoto, out to Mtae & Mulalo. Even stayed in a convent full of nuns (surprisingly), had dinner with the priest and everything..

Spent a couple of days in Dar Es Salaam Doing nothing exciting. just enjoying non african food and wandering the streets.

People bag it as a city. Theres nothing special. but its defiantely not awful

 

So when I was leaving Rwanda. The exchange rate at the border was rubbish. I had 80,000 Francs ($200), and wasn’t going to make their day by changing with them.

I knew the bank rate. So figured I would do the exchange in Mwanza or as it turned out in Tabora.

Alas the banks in Tabora didnt change Francs. Only US & Euro.

No problem. The trusty Barclays or Standard & Chartered are in Dar es Salam along with  ~1000 Forex bureaus.

Not one of them will change it. I guess that means its an Internal Currency.

$200 looking like lost money.. Saved by the fruits of the internet!

Irene that I met thru Couchsurfing is gonna change the money in Rwanda for me and Western Union it back to me! I should send an Invoice to Lonely Planet for the WU fees as they dont warn that its an internal currency. (they do for the asian ones!)

/rant off but a happy ending.

Well, it has to be expected.

The Train was due to depart Tabora 9pm. It didnt arrive at the station till 12:40am. and didt depart till 1:40am.

However, we weren’t kept unamused. They played very loud techo thru the PA system. Such classics as the Venga Boys and others.

All in all, a nice ride tho, and much more comfortable than the Buses.

Dodoma is the Capital. Although not much actually happens here. a quaint small town, thats been planned. So everything is really spread out on grid style streets.

Patric the German gains quote of the Day status.

I was looking at a fruit and vege stall. And exclaimed at the size of their enormous avacados.

He said “you can’t buy that”.

I asked why not

“because it doesn’t taste good unless its cooked”   🙂

Kirsten (german) & myself just looked at him. Hes even a Vegetarian!

Also, found a market where everyone brings 30L plastic buckets full of their home brew maize beer. Foreigners never go there, so we were quite the entertainment. lots of people coming over offering samples of their brew.

Some were really rough. however I settled on a Tamarillo infused version. Patric a standard maize flavour. 1Litre for 50cents.

Limited ourselves to one round. Not sure if the alcohol content would sterilise the ditch water or whatever it was made from. (No problems a couple of days on – What are the symptoms of Typhoid???)

with my fandangled calculator watch. (sorry, youll have to wait for a picture)

yesterday while stranded in the middle of nowhere on the bus i did some calculations.

2.5 years of holiday = 78840000 seconds, or 912.5 days, or 21900 hours, or 1314000 minutes, or 78840000 seconds
Ive been travelling 20,773,740 seconds so far (as at 10:29 yesterday)

leaving just 58,066,260 seconds left.

or 96,777 minutes

or 16129.5 hours

or 672 Days

or 1.8 years

Tempting to push it out to make it the 1000 day holiday I think 😀

Note: this is not a moan/whinge, Just for my recollection of details, and some of it was enjoyable! 🙂

• 5:30am Check in. Somethings up. My bus is the only one without internal lights on
• 5:45am Departure time. They are attempting to push start the bus. (unsealed, uneven, rocky bus park)
• 6:20am. Success, congratulations the 60seater bus has an engine!
• 6:22am. Realise there is a 1 of 2 windows missing from the frame beside me. And its cold & dusty
• 6:30am. Success, using my pack clipped to the curtain, and wedging myself against the remainder of the curtain. its stopping most of the wind.
• 6.38am. Eveyone in the back of the bus is moved to the front 1/2 in the aisle. The conductor says this is the way its done in Tanzania. We are at the weighbridge 🙂
• 6:44am. Bus doesnt sound ok. loud clanking. Bus stops on the road
• 6.50am. Theres guys underneath, striking metal no metal.
• 7:15am. look out my window, and the bus driveshaft is being loaded into a matatu. along with all the bus staff. It drives away. Is this included in the Travel time allowance of 6 hours?
• 7:40am. Wish I’d charged my ipod. battery is low.
• 10:04am. D Joints for driveshaft arrive on a matatu. Still need the actual driveshaft
• 10:40am. RIP ipod
• 11:15 Salvation, a guy with sugar cane is cycling past, and someone stops him (yes someone had to stop him. This is not india!).
• 12:20. 10c well spent for 1hrs entertainment trying to eat raw sugar cane + juicy goodness
• 12:25. Apparently the drive shaft has been made. Just waiting for it to arrive.
• 12:45. Twende! (lets go). The bus is push started in 4 attempts.
• 1pm We leave the tarmac.
• 1:01pm. I realise the reason why there is only 1 window in the frame. All parts of the frame vibrate independently to each other and the wall of the bus. The other  window has obviously previously imploded.
• I didn’t know glass could withstand such violent vibration. If i had a decibel meter, i would have verified. but my guess the glass was creating ~90 to ~110db banging when vibrating. At a max distance of 40cm to my ear.
• Concerned that the glass is going to shatter, and slice my arm to bits, when in the middle of dusty nowhere!
• Thinking of how I packed my earplugs in my pack (under the bus)
• The ‘road’ is made of dust. like sand, but finer and easily airborne. Everything is covered in red dust.
• 5:45pm. We arrive in Tabora
• later on realizing my travel pack (earplugs) was in the bottom of my day bag all along.DOH! Priceless

So i decided to head for Tanzania. Made it to
Rusomo. The border post with Tanzania.

And here began my adventures with Tanzanian transport.

I figured I would be up for the 7am opening of the border to get a good early start. Aiming I thought for Mwanza
Crossed the border, and had to wait for the Tanzania border post to open ~8am.

No traffic was passing the border till ~10:30am.
There was but one Matatu (share taxi) and I had to wait till 11 for that. So much for my early start.

This got me to Kahama. A small dusty town, with nothing but a large bus station. With no buses departing that day as they all leave at 6am.
I did meet some friendly locals, and had a great day hanging out.

I also got me a calculator watch for $2.

Today I visited this school. where 40,000 people had been sent, promised protection during the 1994 civil war.

But they ended up crammed into the classrooms and then slaughtered over four days.

As I rode up to the site, I was amazed at the natural beauty of the surrounding hills. We then walked down to the classrooms where it all happened. Pictures – Warning Graphic
Its mind boggling to think that this happened in 1994, just 12 years ago.

Some of the things I have been told by locals. How it was neighbour attacking neighbour. Someone they had talked to over the fence for years. Whole familys wiped out.

Or only one managing to escape to another country. Then on returning later, being vilified because they got out.
And then today. Every Saturday there is court sessions all over the country, where one is accused of an action during the genocide. This person is then called and details who told them to do it, or further implicates others.

The people are sentenced, jailed. And then released. To live over the fence from their neighbour whos family they massacred.

Today; the same thing is happening in Darfur, Sudan. An estimated 400,000 killed so far. And its getting worse

We seem to remember things when they are past. but not pay attention to what is happening around us today.

When will we learn from history and not let it repeat?

nothing like a bit of self diagnosis, and self surgery.

jigger flea or chigoe (Tunga penetrans) is a serious pest in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas and Africa. Both sexes feed on blood. The female flea, after insemination, burrows itself in the skin of the toes and the sole of the foot. The female swells to the size of a pea, produces eggs and dies in the tissue. There is local reaction to the bite and the eggs and dead flea produce reaction. The infested tissue can get infected and gangrenous; auto-amputation is not uncommon. Treatments are symptomatic: infestation may be physically removed; secondary infections are treated appropriately. Shoes should be worn in infested areas.

pic of the critter

thank goodness mine wasnt this bad (nasty foot photo)
So basically, I covered the bump with wax as it appeared to have an air vent, and Im sure I could feel it wriggling after that. then I dug it out.

Dont worry, my pic is here. and my foot hasnt dropped off yet..

Sunday arvo headed to Kibuye. which is a very small town on lake kivu. very pretty, it looks like the marlbourouhg sounds in NZ. sunken valleys.

but alas, it was too small, so have now hit Butare. This is the ‘intellectual capital’ of Rwanda. 3 streets and a museum. but lets see if i can find some interest here 🙂

Louis is in the Congo headed for Burundi. So maybe meet him there.