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A Stopover in Mwanza (Or, Where We First Saw the Marabou Storks Which Haunt My Dreams)

After checking out the rock paintings in Kondoa, we planned to head northwest to Mwanza, Tanzania’s second largest city, for a stopover on our way to Rwanda.

It was another early morning when we left Kondoa. Unfortunately, the best (least worst?) routing to Mwanza from Kondoa required us to first backtrack to Dodoma. Unsurprisingly, the road back to Dodoma was just as bumpy as it had been on the way up to Kondoa. If anything, the ride was more bumpy because our seats didn’t appear to be permanently attached to the bus – so when we went over a bump, it wasn’t just us flying out of our seats, it was us flying out of our seats with the seats flying along behind us.

We arrived in Dodoma mid-morning, and our plan was to forge on to Mwanza that same afternoon. Our guidebook indicated that Mwanza-bound buses that originated in Dar es Salaam passed through Dodoma around noon, and we set about looking for tickets on one of those buses.1

Bus station, Dodoma, Tanzania
Welcome to the Dodoma bus station, no one’s favorite place! | image credit: Massimiliano

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