Rwamanga, Rwanda

Had a long drive through the North of Tanzania to the Rwanda border. We found this part of the country completely different – much more dry, less developed and clearly very poor.
Fortunately, the border crossing was incredibly straight forward (not usually the case in our experience), clearly led by Rwanda. Usually at most of these border crossings, you are immediately surrounded by money-changers and other touts trying to sell stuff, but not here. There was a single stopping point where you excited Tanzania and entered Rwanda. Signs were in 4 languages (including English) and very easy to follow. Staff were friendly and helpful – even on the Tanzanian side (clearly Rwanda has raised the bar for them and they couldn’t afford to do business as usual given the embarrassing contrast it would offer). We drove a few hours until we could find a hotel.
Unfortunately, John had some sort of bug that required a sudden stop on the side of the road so he could throw up. We tried to stop where there were not too many people, but one thing you quickly learn in Africa is you are never alone. Soon, the whole village came out to watch, the teenage boys more interested in watching Christy in the driver’s seat of the Land Rover than John’s antics, and the mothers with babies and grandmothers seemed to be offering a running commentary, from a respectable distance, at every convulsion. Not sure what they were saying, but probably something like ‘oh boy, there he goes again, that white boy can sure vomit, I was sure he was done – yep here comes another one, and look - carrots, always carrots.’ Ugh! Very awkward, but at least it wasn’t coming out the other end!Read more