I woke from a very light sleep with a kink in my neck and a returned awareness of the pain in my legs and my back. I checked my phone and saw it was 1:15am and that we were finally entering Kigali. I breathed a sigh of relief that I would soon be able to extricate myself from the small depression where the seats should have gone that I had squeezed in beside the Tanzanian girl who was acting as translator for me between the rest of her family and the driver of the car.

I had now been traveling for 19 hours, awake for 20 as I got up at 4:30am to pack up my tent and hike up the road from the beach in Kigoma, Tanzania, where I had spent the last four days. My tuk tuk was waiting for me and we drove down to the bus station, where I claimed my half of a seat (the other being claimed by the large woman and all of her wares in the seat next to mine) and spent the next 8 hours. Arriving at 2pm in Nyakanazi, this was the place I had planned to spend the night, as it was still a couple of hours to the border from here, and 3.5 to Kigali from the border at Rusomo falls. However, when I got to the town of Nyankanazi, it was a lot smaller than I expected, with about two dubious looking guesthouses. When I asked when the bus to Kigali left, I was informed it left at 3am the next morning. Ouch. When I enquired when the bus to the border left, I was told “right now”. So on I hopped.

It was a minibus, which did leave right away, but took forever. I had been informed that the road to the border was paved, but like the rest of the roads in Western Tanzania, it was still under construction, forcing us to go on bumpy detours on either side of the road. About 30km from the border, it was after 6pm and I wondered what time the border closed. I could have stopped at the town before the crossing, but had already paid to the border and thought perhaps there was still a chance I could make it to Kigali.

Pretty soon the few of us still left on the bus were shepherded into a small car which sped up the process considerably, while detracting from our comfort markedly. I shared the front seat with two others, one somewhat underneath me, one somewhat over top, while the driver reached underneath the person next to me to change the gears. 

At around 6:30pm, we finally reached the border. As we sailed over the Tanzanian side, I had a brief panic and pictured myself walking back the few kms to get stamped out, but the driver ensured me I could get both an exit and entry stamp on the Rwanda side. It was also unclear if the driver was going further into Rwanda, and I thought perhaps I might get lucky and get to Kigali after all. With everyone else leaving their luggage in the car, I did the same, grabbing my daypack. As I stood in line after line to get my East African visa, I became worried about my bag in the car, but couldn’t really leave. Eventually, after about 30 minutes (which really wasn’t bad), I had the visa and ran out to find the car. Which was gone. Of course.

I paced up and down, trying to remain calm but thinking the worst. An annoying moto driver kept asking me things in Swahili, to which I became super frustrated, no fault of his. After a very long ten minutes, I spotted some people that had been in the car with me, and I asked them where the car was. They pointed back to where it had been, but I still couldn’t find it. A minute later, annoying moto driver handed me my bag. Apparently the driver had handed it to the border officials who ensured me they had taken good care of it, which upon inspection, they had. Relief flooded through me and I was ready to tackle the next problem: what to do. It was 7:30pm, dark and no transport in site. But at least I had my bag and visa. Apparently no buses were heading to Kigali til 6am, so I began negotiating a fare with a moto driver to the closest guesthouse when I realized I also had no Rwandan currency. At this point the other passengers who had been in the car were also finished at the border and were also trying to get to Kigali. They had soon secured a ride with a local so I asked if I could tag along. I don’t think they were stoked about it, but humoured me and acted as translator. We all exchanged money, had some food and hot milk (very popular in Rwanda), and waited for the driver to register his car before leaving for Kigali. And waited.

In hindsight, I probably should have just gone to the guesthouse for the night, but after about 16 hours on the road, I wasn’t thinking all that clearly, and just wanted to get to Kigali. Finally, at 10:30pm, we headed to Kigali. And this is how I ended up squished into the back of a car at 1:15am. The driver dropped us off at a gas station where the ubiquitous moto taxis arrived to take us away, I paid the driver, thanked the family (not profusely enough, but I had now been awake for 20 hours) and the moto driver and I set off to find the hostel I had bookmarked. Which we never found. Searching for plan B, I opened my offline maps and saw another hostel marked on the map, the name and location of which the driver knew. Perfect. I have never been so happy to see a group of foreigners drinking beer on a hostel patio at 2 in the morning as I was when we arrived. Five minutes later I was in bed.