Day 112: Umuko Lodge (Rwanda) – Starlight Hotel (Tanzania)

We thought the border in Rusumo might be a little less busy on a Sunday, but guess what?

We drive past around 60 waiting trucks, are allowed to park right in the border area, and have a basically simple border procedure:

Tanzania Health Officer – whatever he does except flip through passports and keep lists.

Then in a building: Exit Immigration Rwanda, Immigration Tanzania, Customs Rwanda, Customs Tanzania, pay the Tanzania road tax, return to Customs Tanzania. Then we collect another stamp for paid road tax or report to the exit gate, and we're through.

And we managed to re-enter Tanzania without having to pay for another visa.

What follows is 100 km of dust.

Major Chinese road construction.

In the evening, we decide to park at the Star Light Hotel in Biharamulo for a second time, even though a wild camping spot would have been much nicer. But we could use the WiFi to research Vodacom shops, and we're already running pretty late after a very long day of driving. Brigitte has completely forgotten about the place. It's rather silly, but not so bad that it would rank among the worst places in Africa and thus remain indelibly in our memories. Showers are out of the question, though; turning on the hot water switch shorts out. It's a good thing none of us have been in the water yet :-)