TZ

we moved on from there to Tanzania. we basically went down the west of tanzania, half on shyte roads, and half on a ferry. Nyakanazi was a piece of shit town that surprisingly had great beans, tea that tasted JUST like froot loops, and really pleasant hotels (which tanzanians call "guestis"). this was my second ever basin wash, which is surprisingly not that difficult to get used to. Heh, the best thing about this town though is that it illustrated to me the extent to which everyone knows everything that's happening in the town. we told one person that we wished to travel on to kigoma the following day, and the next day when we came out of our guesti, the first person who saw us said, "you are travelling to kigoma, i will take you to the stage." (people call bus stops "stages")
On to Kigoma. a town on the shore of Lake Tangyinika, second largest lake in africa (after lake victoria). it's a long very thin lake that stretches north-south, bordering the DRC to the west, TZ to the east, and barely touches Burundi at the north and Zambia at the south.
So we took advantage of the fact that we could get to zambia via the lake.
but before i get to the ferry, i have two short notes about Kigoma. first off, it's a dusty, boring, yet pleasant town. sean and i were there for... i think four days. so it's the first place we lingered. and not because the place kicked ass, but because the ferry that usually runs on wednesdays now runs on saturdays, and every second week is taken by the UN to repatriate DRC refugees. so we wandered Kigoma until we found the one spot along the shore where we could swim. we had lots of fun at this place, because they served fanta (my fave) and coke (sean's), and it was almost always populated with a bunch of kids who wanted to have water-fights with us. sean and i figured out how he could swim under me and put me on his shoulders, and suddenly everyone around was attempting to jump UP onto each others' shounders.... unsuccessfully mostly. a blast. we had ourselves a good 45 minute walk in the POURING rain one day, and made absolute mzungu fools of ourselves, jumping in puddles and trying to make the best of the fact that we were indeed frickin freezing and both had to pee REAL bad.

the ferry.
that's a story in itself. we boarded on saturday after sunset, and arrived on monday morning. so two nights and only one full day on the ferry. there are a few very notable things that happened on our few days there. but the best things were meeting fellow travelers. first class (the only real option --- third class is the hull, crammed with hundreds of people with nowhere to lie down) is on the top level of the boat, and populated by both rich ass mzungus and rich ass locals. most people use the boat to bring pineapples and mekene (little eety beetsy fishes) to zambia and down the coast of TZ. so we met a few guys:
Carel: South African guy, real cool, well travelled, packed full to the brim with good stories.
Gil: Israeli, very cool aswell (who am i kidding, they were all incredibly cool), who'd been travelling the dark continent for six months at this point.
Ben: Australian guy, very layed back, who'd been in africa for four months, i think.

both gil and ben joined is for a good chunck of time after the ferry, all the way to livingston for gil, and zimbabwe for ben. they were both reaching the end of their travels, which made their paces and sean+i's very compatible (we all wanted to see as much as possible in the shortes period of time possible).

so the bunch of us discovered this spot at the back of the ferry that wasn't fenced in, about three stories above water level (sorry mom, sometimes you have to put yourself in harm's way to avoid serious clausterphobia). so we sat there most of the days and enjoyed each others' company.

overall, the experience in TZ was pretty damn good, but it was hella difficult to find places who served beans (the only local dish that vegans can eat). English is very common in most of the palces we went, but in western tanzania, it was difficult.... OHMANIIHAVETOIPEEEE......
BRB111111