Overlanding solo: My seven-day road trip from Nairobi to Kigali

Software engineer Dickson Otieno was having a bender while scrolling his phone when his eyes caught something of interest on YouTube.

 “It was this Rwandese Youtuber who runs the channel, Travel with Ntirushwa, who has been road-tripping and documenting his overland adventures across different countries on a motorbike. I was fascinated and wanted to try something out with my car,” Dickson tells the BD Life.

With his sleek Toyota Axela 2014 model, Dickson asked a few of his friends if they could join him on an overland adventure from Nairobi to Kigali to watch American Grammy award-winning artist Kendrick Lamar perform at the Rwandan capital.

 “They gave all sorts of excuses, ooh it’s far, it’s exhausting, traffic and all manner of palliate you can think of,” he says

 With his friends out, Dickson decided to make the overland even more enchanting. Instead of doing Nairobi to Kigali, he would go around Lake Victoria.

 Seven days, 100 songs, 2,575 kilometres later, Dickson had gone around Africa’s largest and world’s second largest freshwater lake snaking through Nairobi, Mwanza, Kigali, Kampala, Kisumu and back to the capital.

 “Being my first time doing this, watching Ntirushwa made it easier for me to know which border points to use and what I needed to have on this trip. I left on Wednesday, the day Lamar was performing, drove to Sirare border point then to Mwanza, Tanzania where I crushed at a friend’s house,” he says.

 The next morning he covered 124 km to Geita, Tanzania and a further 261 km to Rusumo on the same day, which is a Tanzanian-Rwanda border point.

“It’s actually very interesting because getting to Geita from Mwanza you will have to board a ferry to cross Lake Victoria to the other side. The 25- minute cruise on the lake was very scenic. You get to enjoy great nature views and the late John Magufuli left a huge project there that just adds oomph and aura to the view. Tanzania is building a modern long bridge across the lake to connect Geita to Mwanza,” says Dickson.

 The construction of the 3.2 km Kigongo-Busisi bridge began in February 2020 with its completion slated for this year. Besides linking Geita to Mwanza, the bridge will also link Tanzania to Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi by road.

 “The only problem I had in Tanzania was a bribe of Tsh3 million (Sh186,000) because I took pictures and videos of the scenic bridge while on the ferry yet there are no signs prohibiting the same. I ignored and sped off.

Software engineer, Dickson Otieno took a solo road trip from Nairobi to Rwanda.

Nonetheless, when you take this trips you come to realise that it’s only Kenyan border crossings that has delays whilst those of the neighboring countries are a smooth ride. In Rusumo it only took me 10 minutes to cross. I showed them my passport which they matched to the name on my log book. The guy from Rwanda side checked my car chassis number to ensure it also matched the log book and I was good to go.

This wasn’t the experience I had at Sirare crossing to Tanzania. The Kenyan customs guys were not at the station.  I had to pay an agent to find a way to have my documents stamped. It took almost two hours to get cleared. At Rusomo, when I got there at 8pm everybody was still at their desk but at Sirare I arrived at 3 pm and no one was there,” Dickson laments.

 For him, nothing beats the feeling of cruising on Tanzanian roads, especially in the evenings and nights. The roads are smooth and no roadblocks.

 “There were only two police checks in Tanzania, one after Mwanza and another before Rusumo border. I had carried all that was required but wasn’t asked even once at those two points. All they asked was “how is Nairobi?”

 From Rusumo to Kigali the trip wasn’t as short as it seemed on paper.

 “It’s only 167 km but it will take you three hours because it’s quite hilly and there are road-cams almost everywhere in Rwanda. You can’t break rules and drive fast. The speed limit is set for between 40-60 km/hr. Also in Rwanda, road making is taken seriously compared to Kenya. Every part of the road is well marked.”

 After spending two nights in Kigali, the journey back home was via Uganda cutting through the capital to Gatuna, Mbarara, and Kampala to Busia border point.

The only bad experience

 “The Uganda route was also very enjoyable and I didn’t understand why Kenyans whom I have seen on Twitter (X) do these overland trips keep complaining of bad roads, and terrible traffic in Uganda (or is it because I drove there on Sunday?) and police harassment in Tanzania. My only bad experience was in Kenya,” he says.

 In Dickson’s world, Kenya’s roads are as bad as they can get.

 “I didn’t exhaust one tank of fuel to Mwanza from Sirare, the same applied from Mwanza to Kigali, as was the case from Kigali to Busia. In Kenya, however,  I consumed two tanks from Nairobi to Busia. In total, I consumed about 175 litres of fuel for the seven days overland, translating to about Sh34,000.”

 For first-time overlanders, he says it’s best to download offline maps to aid with navigation.

“You will also need a few coins to spend as fees on border crossing agents at the Kenyan border points. On the other boarders, you don’t pay anything because you do everything by yourself. Also, from my research, Tanzanian police will want to see a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, a windscreen washer, reflection life saver triangles, a spare tyre and a yellow fever certificate. The same applies to Rwanda and Uganda,” he advises.

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