Cycle to Farms: The Final Leg of Our Journey Cycling in Tanzania

CROSSING THE BORDER FROM RWANDA INTO TANZANIA

Crossing the border at Rusumo, we were treated to a beautiful view of the mighty Rusumo Waterfall after an intense morning’s cycling on our way to the Tanzanian border. When we arrived at the border, we had high hopes that we would find a flatter landscape after the many hills we had crossed through Rwanda on our way to the border. This was somewhat true, but it was not until we had crossed the border for another 50 km that the hills seemed to flatten out. Arriving in Rusumo we applied for our visas, which we got relatively quickly. We had to show our passports and our yellow vaccination booklet and applied for the visa on arrival. As soon as we arrived in Tanzania we heard the phrase ‘Karibu Tanzania’ (welcome to Tanzania) everywhere we went. We felt especially welcome because of all the friendly people we met as soon as we crossed the border. We were looking forward to exploring Tanzania a bit more and practising our Swahili, which we had not been able to use so much since Kenya. Whilst in Rwanda some Swahili was spoken, the official language there is KinyaRwanda and in Uganda most people spoke Luganda and we met many people who spoke perfect English. In Tanzania, however, it was clear that people preferred to speak Swahili over English. But as the sun was setting, we quickly looked for a hostel to stay in for the night. This seemed to be quite a challenge as we had already left the border town of Rusumo and were heading towards the next town which was about 20 km away. We were tired and in need of a shower but there was only an hour left before dusk. We decided to ask the locals and managed to find another place to stay for the night not too far away.