| Permission to cross to Burundi |
I entered Burundi in the most fantastic possible way: by boat through the Tanganyika Lake, which is, after Baikal, the second deepest lake in the world. From Kigoma, in Tanzania, to Bujumbura, in Burundi, it took me 12 hours of pleasant navigation remembering the great travellers of the XIX century such as Livingstone, Stanley, Burton, Speke, and the forgotten Portuguese and Spanish explorers Pedro Paez (discoverer of the sources of the Blue Nile), Duarte Lopes (the first European to see and describe in books in 1578 Victoria, Nyassa and Tanganyika lakes), or the Padre Silbeira (the first European to admire Livingstone Falls), who explored Africa several centuries before the English. I stayed in the splendid hotel Burundi Palace where I only paid 10 US dollars a night in a single room. From Bujumbura to Kigali (capital of Rwanda) there are daily services which journey takes 12 hours. |