Burundinsanity

After three fairly tame days in Butare (we hiked Parc Nyungwe to see monkeys and waterfalls, saw the Rwandan national museum and drank on the porch of Hotel Ibis) we took a weird matatu ride from Butare to Bujumbura. The driver would taken hairpin turns at _à Km/h (really fast on African mountain roads), clap along to songs on straightaways and play nothing but solid tunes all ride long (Boyz-II-Men, Justin Timberlake, Toni Braxton, etc). The only downside was the cramped seating situation (14 people in a van) and the one carsick dude who threw up out the window the entire ride post-border crossing.

So here we are, the captial of Burundi! Our first day was spent just getting used to the city, which is far different from anything else I've ever seen in my life. Sprawling urban areas on a plain before the lake, stretching east to the mountains leading back to the main road. No tall buildings, reasonably constructed roads, nice people and more French language practice than I've had in a while (no rebels either!). Despite the ominous travel warnings Burundi is almost absurdly safe (mening of course that it is no more dangerous in my mind than Kampala or Mombasa), although taxis are useful in the evening. No hassles, no police wanting bribes (in fact they're among the friendliest roadblock guards I've ever seen!) and certainly nothing to be overly concerned with safety wise.

We had our first dinner at Dong Fang, a local Chinese place. After that delicious meal it occured to me that I need only dine Chinese in Kigali and Dar es Salaam (or Dodoma, depending on who you ask) to have had spring rolls in the capital cities of all of East Africa, sans-Somalia. Friday involved a quick swim in Lake Tanganyika (one of the few lakes in East Africa with enough currents to kill the vectors of bilharzia), a small meal at the Saga Plage and dinner at a happening resto-bar. Drinking was likely to have followed, but health would not permit it so it was off to bed at around 7 pm. Our French ex-pat friend, Dominique, showed up at our room with his girlfriend around 9 surprised to find us in bed (and even more surprised to see me sleeping in a tent indoors to save money), but promising to take us out the next day.

The next day we took off in his car to an unknown place, stopping on the way to see the place where Livingstone apparently met Stanley (very bizarre), buy some oranges at a local market, check in on some post car-accident aid workers (Aid workers, for those who don't know, drive like idiots. Worse still are UN drivers!) and spend the rest of the day chilling at a beach that had more of a Carribean feel than an African lake feel. Amazing swimming, good food, good company, good times. Our dinner took us back to the Saga Plage, where we camped for the evening. In hindsight, camping in a nightclub was really stupid, sleep was minimal and the DJ seemed to love MC Hammer.

Today we awoke to people shouting at us (mzungu, why are you in a tent?) and telling us to co;e chill with them. Mind you, they're drunk and it's 6 am. We eventually join this small group of young ladies and one gentleman, later on realizing that they zere all prostitutes servicing the US armed servicemen. Gorgeous people (well, all but one of them), but quite drunk and quite aggressive to the other locals so we didn't spend too much time with them Oh, did I mention that 3,000 Burundian male youths were on the beach doing military excercises (no they weren't rebels), trying to swim to Congo (seriously) and watching us take our tent down. The prostitutes may be trying to follow us around town so they can offer us "services" but Dro and I aren't very interested.

From there the day got weirder. We left the plage around 8 (I'll be honest, we had found some leafy things and were really, really hungry as a result) and headed to Kapa Bakery. Kapa is owned by a series of Cypriot-Sudanese brothers who arrived via Congo (loooooong story) who absolutely love our company and make the best pasteries in town. Apparently today breakfast was on the house (Merci Gabriel!) so we ate well. On our way back to find a hotel, we ran into Dominique randomly, went back to Kapa for coffee, found a random Greek Orthodox church to gawk at and headed to our new guesthouse (named Guesthouse) which was actually the same guesthouse as before. We were even given our old room back! Our attempts at napping were thwarted by a seemingly impromptu drum rally right out side our room.

You can't make this stuff up.

So this evening the plan is (seriously) to see if we can play soccer with the President of Burundi, have a nice dinner with Dominique and get our party on away from any potential hookers.

Dro and Ashley leave tomorrow for Rwandam but I may stay a few more days here. Bujumbura is absurd in the best way possible.

Cheers,

-Dave