1. Small country, easy to discover, locals are still happy to see tourists
2. Enjoying fresh mountain and highland air in an African country
3. Touching to see the positive attitudes of local people living in deep poverty
4. The striking green color of the mountains, many lakes with clean water
5. An exotic, adventurous destination with no safety concerns
6. Not as much dirt as in many other African countries, few cars
7. To admire the archaic, but well-functioning wooden boats
8. To watch the rehearsal of a local choir and later a famous drummer band on an afternoon on the banks of Lake Tanganyika
9. To visit the memorial of the site where Livingstone and Stanley met in 1871, knowing that this legendary meeting of the two explorers actually took place elsewhere
10. The village of Busekera, where you are supposed to see pygmies
11. Swimming in Lake Tanganyika enjoying the comfort of the Blue Bay Resort
12. Road networks are somewhat better than the African average
13. We trained ourselves to paparazzi, so we didn’t have to pay for taking photos on locals
1. Few tourists so we received way too much attention from locals (staring, vehement begging)
2. The lack of streetlights
3. To visit the country knowing about the horrible tribal war of 2006
4. More squalid and underdeveloped than Rwanda
5. The capital city, Bujumbura, is chaotic, and apart from observing the locals’ everyday lives, there are no exciting sights to visit
6. Many things are expensive for tourists (for example Wi-Fi)
7. Gitega, the second biggest city is not interesting
8. Drunked local men who spend a big part of the family income on drinking Primus beer
9. French is spoken, English seldom
10. Almost impossible to rely on the long-distance bus network
11. On or along the roads, guys often showed us the middle finger (just for fun or hate?)
12. In the Rusizi NP we could only observe birds
13. Concern about local epidemies
14. On the road policemen often stopped us our car to force us to pay a bribe (they usually said that they need it for food)
15. Most locals immediately ask for money if you take a picture of them
