The Road to Burundi…

With only 280 kms to ride today, I could afford to take my time… I had seen a Burundi registered car parked next to the bike, and I sought out the owner, Olivier, who not only advised me where I should try to stay, but also explained what the exchange rate was and how long I should expect the ride to take… I left the hotel and headed out on the road to Burundi and its capital, Bujumbura… The sun was shining and within a short while I was out of Kigali and onto the open road.

A great surface to ride on...

I came across at least a dozen of these on the road to the Burundi Border...

This is one of those roads that you want to ride again and again… It twists and turns as it heads south; the road surface was one of the best I have ridden on in a long time, with hardly a pothole on it… There were however a few rocks slides as a result of the rain we had the day before, so I had to be careful in places where the steep mountainside came down to the road…

All the rivers I crossed over were swollen with dark muddy water and flowing swiftly… Fields of maize and sugar cane were submerged, and I wondered how much rain had actually fallen… We must have had at least 50 mm up in the Virungas… Rwanda and Burundi are very mountainous little countries, and I find it hard to believe that crops are grown on the steepest slopes imaginable… But I suppose when there is no flat land available; you have to make a plan…

Rwandan border to Burundi... All over in five minutes...

Rwanda says "NO" to corruption...and "YES" to high prices...

I passed through the little town of Giterama and then rode on to Rwanda’s second biggest town, Butare… I was still riding on the same tank of petrol that I had filled up with in Uganda a few days ago, and started doing a few calculations on how far I could get on the remainder… Despite the road being an excellent one to ride on, there was no possibility of traveling at high speeds here, as there were few straights longer than a couple of hundred metres… I was averaging about 60 to 70 km/h, and knew that my fuel consumption would be quite low… I had also been told that fuel was cheaper in Burundi, so wanted to get over the border before refueling… Every cent counts!!!

After 180 km, I came up to the most relaxed and laid back border post I have encountered so far… There was hardly a soul about, and I am sure the border officials must have outnumbered the people wanting to cross over to Burundi… Within five minutes, I was good to go… The NPS number plate must have done the trick, because when the Customs official started to write the license plate number into a big black book, he paused after the NPS, gave me a long look, and then wrote the number which followed it… Had the rumours about me spread this far already!!!

Welcome to Burundi, Rwanda's poorer cousin...

On the Burundi side, it took a little longer…. Everything in Burundi takes a little longer, but this was my first sampling of it… I stood in a long queue of people having their passports stamped to get into Rwanda, as there is but one Immigration counter for both exiting and arrivals… After standing in what was about 30 degrees of hot sunshine for half and hour, I began to feel a little nauseous, and broke out into a sweat that I knew was not as a result of the sunshine only… Funny how you just KNOW that moment when your body crosses over from healthy to sick… This was one of those moments… The result of spending nine hours in wet clothes the previous day had finally caught up with me… Within minutes I had a blinding headache and my sinuses opened up like a sluice gate on a dam wall…

At midday, with only 115 kms to go, I could afford to relax for a change...

I finally got through Immigration, had the Carnet stamped at Customs, and was on my way… The fuel light came on and advised that I had a range of 70 kms left in the tank… I stopped at a small service station in Kayanza and saw that I had ridden over 420 km on only 18,5 litres of fuel… Very good going for a 1200cc bike…!!

Burundi is without a doubt Rwanda’s poorer cousin… While the road was still in reasonable condition, the people themselves seemed to be in a far sorrier state… Many of the children on the roadside were literally wearing rags for clothing, most of the houses were in various stages of dilapidation, and there were few smiles to be seen… Strange what a difference a few hundred metres can make… On the Rwandan side there were happy faces, the roadsides were neat and tidy with hardly any litter about, but here in Burundi, it was like riding through a rubbish dump…

The scenery was however as spectacular as it was in Rwanda…

The rain beats down, forcing me to get the rain gear out...

With about 50 kms to go to Bujumbura, the first drops of rain began targeting me, and I pulled over under a large Acacia tree next to the road, and quickly got my rain gear out… Within minutes a large crowd of women and children had surrounded the Big Fella and I, and were holding their hands out, begging for money or food… I had not seen a single beggar in Rwanda or Uganda, so this came as a surprise, and confirmed that Burundians had it harder than most… What I could not understand, was the fact that on almost every patch of land, crops grew in abundance, and here were this group of people begging…

I rode away from them, as it was not going to be possible to satisfy all of them… There were at least thirty people in the group, and I did not have enough biscuits or food to give to them…

With rain pouring down, I was forced to ride very carefully, and on occasion, Big Fella sent a message that his “shoes” were not in the best of shape, having now done almost 18 000 kms on them, since fitting them in December last year…

I came over a long rise and on the crest, looked up to see Lake Tanganyika stretched out before me in the valley below… The port city of Bujumbura sprawled off into the distance, sunlight glinting off tin roofs… The city lies at the lake’s most northern tip, and is serviced by many large freighters, which bring goods up to Burundi from as far away as Zambia, which lies on its southern tip, as well as Tanzania and the Congo… The road I was on took me right down to the lake’s edge, close to the harbor area, where I watched containers being offloaded with derrick cranes, a long and slow process, as the machinery all seemed to be in their final stages of use, before collapsing into piles of scrap metal…

Crops planted on incredibly steep slopes...

These four turkeys were stuffed into a sack, and waiting to be sold... They were probably feeling as bad as I was...

Despite many people offering to direct me to the hotel I was looking for, I rode around in circles for a long time, and was about to pull over and take a break, when  a guy on a small scooter stopped next to me and jabbered away in Frog…er.. I mean French… I did not hear the words “Bon”, “Merci” or “Carla Bruni”, so was at a loss as to what he was trying to say…

“Hotel Amahoro..!” I shouted, shrugging my shoulders to indicate that I had no idea where it was… He waved a hand for me to follow him, and a few minutes later stopped and pointed out the hotel entrance to me, before buzzing off again… Very decent of him, and he did not ask for money either…

The hotel is ideally placed in the heart of the city, close to banks, post offices and supermarkets, not the type you may be used to, but rather “hole in the wall” supermarkets which have just about everything you will need, if like me, you do not plan to stay too long…. Water, biscuits, Fanta….and that’s about it really…!!

I was now feeling even worse than before, so checked in quickly, got everything up to my room, and then took a double dose of Cal-C-Vita, and lay down on the bed…

Not the greatest of welcomes to Burundi, but I was here, despite the rain and the tricky riding conditions…