Weekend in Kigoma

Thanks to Precision Air's odd policy of canceling any tickets that haven't been paid for 3 days in advance (and their lack of an office in Kibondo), I found myself spending this past Friday on the road. First leg: Kibondo to Kasulu, riding shotgun with the head of our Water Drilling Unit (who had errands to run in Kasulu). First stop: a nice lunch in Kasulu with Tim at the IRC office. Second leg: Kasulu to Kigoma ... not (as I'd anticipated) squished into a poorly ventilated, bursting at its seams bus, but sitting up front again (believe me, on these roads, it makes all the difference in the world!) in the wonderfully rugged, safari-esque, can-tackle-any-terrain super-vehicle of a friend who works in the Moyowosi game reserve (outside Kibondo) and who happened to be passing through Kasulu as well on Friday.

So, thanks to that fantastic piece of transportation luck, what had at first promised to be a rather time-consuming and less than comfortable trip (made even less enjoyable by the knowledge that I'd be retracing my steps this coming Wednesday), ended up turning into a delightfully relaxing weekend in Kigoma. We made it to town early enough to enjoy the last hour or two of the afternoon on Jacobsen's Beach - and were treated to a stunning view of the sun setting behind the mountains in DRC across the lake. That was followed by dinner and a fun night out with 2 American friends of my friend (who had also generously invited us to stay at their house for the weekend). After a lovely morning reading and hanging out around the house on Saturday, a group of us returned to the beach that afternoon for a swim. Having seen how beautiful this spot was the previous evening, I was pretty shocked to discover that it wasn't crawling with like-minded locals. Instead, we were practically the only ones there - us and the monkeys, that is (and the zebra we'd seen Friday were probably not far off). It was wonderful - beautiful beach, clear/clean water, great weather, and excellent company. As if that wasn't good enough, the day was topped off with a delicious potluck dinner at another house in the compound ... and another perfectly lazy morning Sunday. My transportation luck held (since my friend was also heading back to Kibondo on Sunday), so we hit the road early that afternoon and were back in time to whip up some homemade pizza for dinner! All in all, a great weekend in a gorgeous part of Tanzania!