Thursday, November 23, 2006

Great Lakes Adventure...chapter 2

Bujumbura…capital city of Burundi…and a bustling, living city that is just in the final stages of re-establishing order and peace after years of insecurity. I must say that despite the marked difference of development in Kigali and Bujumbura…and by that I mean, under-developed roads, aging infrastructure and power shortages among other indicators, Bujumbura was alive and real. There also seemed to be a lot more police/ army presence in the city…in addition to the UN Mission in Burundi.
Night one, just after we arrived, we began to look for a hotel, and ended up staying at this place, Hotel de l’Amitie, which was not overly impressive and quite over priced considering we were not even being given breakfast. Needless to say we were just there for the night and made a point to find somewhere that was more affordable and that had meals…

In the morning, we moved to the Anglican Church Guest house, much much much MUCH more affordable…and the director there was actually kind of cute.;) the only odd thing about this place, was that we had a curfew….so basically you had to be in before 11 or you would sleep out.

Initially the plan was to be there for two days, and then head over to Bukavu, but because we were soo busy with meetings, we decided to stay in Bujumbura for the weekend (Saturday..) and sightsee. We went to the market…and shopped!!! And then we went to the beach (la plage…) and had some of the freshest fish I have ever eaten! We even witnessed part of a traditional Burundi-an wedding.

Next day we were on the road again..this time heading to Bukavu in Easter DRC.
Quite the adventure to put it mildly; let’s just say that what was supposed to be a 3 hour trip ended up being a 7 hour ordeal, featuring ‘friendly and thirsty’ border officials, entry visa scams and phantom vaccinations.
Grace a Dieu (thanks to God), we made it to Bukavu before nightfall. EXHAUSTED but safe!

Chapter 3, Eastern DRC coming up

1 comment:

Luna said...

my dear...you havi been tagged xx