The journey across Burundi continues. On the road less travelled from Gitega to Rutana.
As well as the travelling, blazing the trail, and getting the blog posts out, I’m also updating and editing Google Maps as I go. Here is the bus station/taxi park in Gitega (Sometimes Google Maps accepts my edits, sometimes not).
The bus terminal in Gitega is about 2½ miles out of the town. I walked there the day before.
I was hoping that there’d be a bus, but my heart sank when I learnt that I’d need to take a shared taxi.
Flashbacks to my time in West Africa, where every time you needed to go anywhere, you had to wait 4, 5, or 6 hours for enough people before the shared taxi would depart.
It kinda put me in a bad mood.
OK, I need to fill you in. I have recently visited and blogged about the Source of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda. Next on my bucket list was to try and visit the Southernmost Source of the Nile, here in Burundi, high in the hills in Bururi Province.
So my idea was to get to a town with a hotel, as close as possible, so I could visit the Source du Nil without needing to pay a ridiculous amount of money.
Google Maps is my Go-To source when trying to organise things in many places.
The trick is to find out where the buses depart from. It might not be so obvious. And then go there yourself and ask. I’d already succeeded in travelling from Bujumbura to Gitega.
So I identified the town of Rutana, 70km south of Gitega. Google Maps showed quite a few hotels. A town with quite a few hotels meant it was a fair size. And that meant people. And people meant more transport options.
Rutana was about 30km from the Source du Nil.
Rutana was also en route to Makamba and Mabanda, and the Burundi-Tanzania border at Manyovu
And I was fully aware that the Source du Nil was in the middle of nowhere. But getting there from Rutana would be much cheaper than trying to get there from Bujumbura.
Up at the crack of dawn, I rode a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) to the Gitega bus station (2000 BFr 50 cents US).
I was directed to a shared taxi. Right-hand drive cars, imported from Japan, but they drive on the right here, not on the left like in Japan and the UK.
So there is some chaos. There is no pecking order. There can be several cars heading to the same place. Each one is waiting for 4 people (better than in West Africa, where you need 7 or more).
Of course, I am the only Mzungu here. Everyone knows where I want to go. My bags were in the front seat. 3 more people are needed.
After a time, my bags are taken and I am led to another vehicle that’s ready to go.
Of course, the drivers start arguing. The other guy is stealing from me.
The fare should be 10,000 BF. My new driver said it was 15,000 and he was pissed because the others were telling me to pay only 10,000.
1 USD is, on the black market, 4,000 Burundi Francs. It’s cheap here. Am not sure if they are making any profit.
So for 70km, he gets 4 passengers, each paying 10,000 (2.50 USD). The fuel economy is gonna be less than 40 mpg. We are going 70km. That’s 45 miles +/-.
He gets just 10 USD for the trip.
So at 7:20 am, we set off. The endless wait that I had been dreading didn’t materialise.
The road is paved, with a few potholes, but nothing like Madagascar. The driver doesn’t even slow down. By 8:45, I am in Rutana, where I get a room at the first hotel I see, the Arkador Lodge, it’s just off the main road, up the hill to the small village centre.
Easy eh! Just another day at the office.
Happy trails!
And it was the beginning of a great day!