The raging Rusumo falls between the border posts was a nice change from the often filthy and seedy borders we had encountered previously, and the crossing went smoothly, although the hefty visa price did make us briefly reconsider our options.Knowing little about Rwanda, except that of media reports and Hollywood movies about the genocide back in 1994, we didn't quite know what to expect from this little Francophone nation dubbed the "land of a thousand hill...

It was dark and we were tired when we pulled into the junction at Kigoma. The GPS had been playing games with us and our map was all but useless so we spent the next half hour trying to find the town centre. Often in these towns there are no signs and all the roads look the same, and unfortunately no one could understand us so we drove round in circles and got nowhere. Eventually I enlisted the help of a cabby who we followed but he didn't even know where he was ...

We had planned to breeze through Tanzania in as short a time as possible, as we had planned to return to explore the country properly in a few weeks time. We were unsure of the conditions of the road we were to travel on, and had heard conflicting reports of it being impassable (especially in the wet season) and others that is was just simply challenging, but we had decided to give it a go anyway and would eventually find out ourselves. At worst it would mean bac...

We crossed the border into Tanzania and again it was relatively hassle fee. To date we had been lucky at the dreaded border crossings, excluding Lesotho of course, and we hoped it would continue.You think Tanzania, and you think sunsets over vast open grassy planes dotted with acacia trees, giraffes and the odd lion or cheetah. You think Mt Kilimanjaro and possibly even Zanzibar, but for us our first taste would be the relatively secluded western fringe and unhea...

We made our way North on a wonderfully scenic drive along the great Rift Valley Escarpament and eventually joined back up with the northen part of Lake Malawi.We were on our way to Livingstonia, a Christian mission founded in the late 1800's and set high on the escarpment overlooking the lake. The mission was named after Dr David Livingstone, the renowned explorer and active opponent of the African slave trade.It was a steep climb from lake level up the 20 hairpi...