The night was refreshing cold. I had to put on my vest whilst eating. There was no light above the table so the girl gave me her phone so I could see what I was eating. It was fish so the light was necessary.
The first 90 km is over a good tarmac road which runs up and down the hills following the border with Burundi. At Kasanda the tarmac stops and the construction of the new road is in progress. This means that you zigzag over the dike of the new road. It had rained the day before so some stretches were very muddy. The red muddy road reminded me very much of all the roads we had to drive back in 1977. I hope this is the only one on this trip. After some 200 km of this road under construction, the pavement started again at Kasulu, which was 119 km before Kigoma and the shore of Lake Tanganyika. We drove quickly into town to the train station but had no good view of the lake and the waterfront. The roads are full of tuk-tuks and therefore movement is slow. Before looking for a guesthouse I decided to drive some 6 km further to Ujiji. This is the original location on the lake from where the slave caravan departed on its way to Bagamoja some 1500 km away. It was also here where Dr. Livingstone was recuperating from a serious spell of malaria. Stanley met him here in 1871 with the famous words “Dr. Livingstone I presume”. They stayed together for a while and even went together to Tabora where Livingstone had a house. However Livingstone had not finished his work as a missionary against slavery and decided to go back across the lake into the Congo and Zambia. He died there 2 years later at the age of 60. His preserved body was brought back to Bagamojo by 2 of his followers who were freed slaves.
Ujiji is a town with cobblestone roads. There are no cars and hardly any shops. It is therefore peaceful. In some places the original streets are still lined with large mango trees. There is also a German shule which is run down by its use.
Instead of using Lonely Planet I used iOverlander to find the guesthouse I am staying in now. iOverlander has comments from visitors so you get a better idea of the place and also a map with the location and you current position live. So it is easy to find in a densely populated hilly city like Kigoma.
Rudy Welling's Travels 