COS Trip: Mwaza and the Night Ferry

I stared my day off fairly early heading to the market. I searched and searched and searched, so lost in the market trying to find the souvenirish place in the middle. I found it and spent a long time trying to figure out what I wanted exactly. I ended up buying a basket from a lady who wasn’t so keen on bargaining, but I was done looking. I then took some of my fabric I had bought in Dar es Salaam and found a man on the street with a sewing machine and hired him to sew me a liner for the basket. It was kind of cool and I felt I needed to experience that. There were people all over the sidewalks with sewing machines. It was a bit insane. While he was working on my bag, I headed back to the pizzeria to get a platter of fresh fruit and some fresh squeezed juice. As I was finishing, I heard some Americans and got a little excited. They were the first white people I’ve seen. They were surgical residents at the hospital and were quite shocked to find a tourist in Mwanza.

After talking to them a while, they convinced me to eat my bus ticket and take the ferry out tonight. It would cost about the same to travel around the west side as it would for me to travel around the east side even after I bought my bus ticket. It would also get me to Kampala around 12-2 instead of 10-11. One of the women walked me down the dock and bought my ticket for me (in Swahili). I then headed back to the hotel, packed my bags and checked out. I grabbed a quick omelet dinner at the hotel restaurant and hired a taxi to take me to the dock.

It was so disorganized at the dock and I arrived at 6:30 for the 9:00 ferry. I sat on my bags for about an hour before boarding. I had a first class sleeping cabin. I put my bags in and went to the bar for a drink. I met a couple from Holland than were just starting a yearlong tour of Africa and enjoyed some conversation. Then the ship man came looking for me. My roommate had arrived. She was a quite woman who headed straight to bed. I headed back to the bar for a bit and we finally set sail on Lake Victoria, from Mwanza to Bokoba. I wandered around the ship for a while taking some pictures before heading to bed myself. What a crazy day!