Burundi. A country in East Africa ranked as the poorest in the world, with an average monthly salary of around $15, I knew going in that this was not going to be an easy nor “fun” trip, but I always go in with an open mind.

We (and I say we because I was a month deep into this Africa trip with my accoustic friend Kieran) landed in Bujumbura and got through immigration without too much drama. The visa was $90 for 30 days and honestly one of the coolest looking visas I have ever received. We found a taxi driver outside the airport called Alexis, who drove us to the hotel.

He quoted $20 for the ride, then decided once we got to the hotel that $20 was too small and tried to renegotiate on arrival. I was actually debating giving the guy $100 during the ride, but he had a little bit of a spaz out at random pedestrians on the drive. So, I gave him $20.

The roads, I will say, were surprisingly good. Concrete. Better than Uganda, which still baffles me. But basically every petrol station we passed was closed. No fuel. The fuel crisis here is real and the black market for it is just as real. You can apparently get it smuggled in from Congo at around $6 USD per litre, which is extraordinary when you consider what people are earning.

Speaking of black markets.

Welcome to the Currency Exchange, Burundian Style

The official exchange rate here is around 2,800 francs to the dollar. The black market rate when we arrived was sitting close to 7,600. Nearly triple. So naturally, the first thing on the agenda was finding someone who could sort us out.

A random guy on the street pointed us to a guy, who pointed us to another spot, who told us to wait on the side of the road while someone drove over. It felt exactly like a drug deal. Since 2024 the government has been cracking down hard on black market exchanges, people have actually been arrested, so the whole thing had this slightly paranoid energy to it where nobody wanted to be standing in the open for too long.

We exchanged $200 and ended up with what felt like an absurd amount of cash. A mix of 10,000 and 5,000 franc notes stuffed into various pockets. Then our driver tried to renegotiate his fee on the way back too. He had quoted 15,000. We gave him 30 because we had gone to two locations. He wanted 40. I am noticing a pattern here.

The Bribe

We were walking through town trying to get SIM cards when a police officer came over aggressively and confiscated my camera. Said I was not allowed to film without a permit. I do not speak French. He did not speak English. One of the SIM card vendors tried to help translate, though I had a feeling he may have been part of the arrangement. After 10minutes of back and forth he wanted '“breakfast” which in this part of the world is code word for dinero.

Eventually we landed on 50,000 francs to make the situation go away. That is a bit over $6 USD at the black market rate. I went around a corner to do the handover because I was not pulling out a wad of cash on the open street.

The SIM card itself was another 20,000 francs. No receipt. The guy was adamant it was 20,000. I had no way of verifying that. I paid it, and then on top of that there were some other fees that he supposedly needed.

Total cost to film and have a phone number in Burundi: one bribe, one SIM, one very long negotiation, and by the end of it I just wanted pizza.

Pizza in the World's Poorest Country

Eating cheese pizza at Waka Waka restaurant, Bujumbura

We found an Italian place called Waka Waka and I will be honest, it was exactly what I needed. The four cheese pizza came out looking genuinely good. Homemade dough, very thin, properly done. I gave it an 8.6 out of 10, which takes into account we are in Burundi, it was probably a 3 in Italian standards. But it was just what I needed.

The bill for everything came to 143,000 francs. That is around $20 USD if you are exchanging on the black market. If you had paid by card or withdrawn at an ATM, that same meal would have cost you $47. The dual pricing reality of this place is something you feel constantly.

We got a taxi back to the hotel and Eric, our taxi driver told us he had queued up at 2am that morning to try and get fuel. We agreed to pay 15,000 for the short ride, he said normally that he would have charged us 10,000 for the ride, but because of the fuel costs it increased. I gave him 30,000 and told him he was a good guy, because he was, it was the first person in the country that didn’t try to screw us.

Two Hotels, Both Disappointing!

Hotel room interior and very basic furnishings

The first hotel was $120 a night. One of the best in the city, apparently. The Wi-Fi did not work. The AC was terrible. There were cockroaches. The beds were extremely springy in the worst possible way and Kieran woke up the next morning barely able to walk from the back pain (he is getting old though).

The following day we moved to the another hotel thinking it would be an upgrade. It was the most expensive in Burundi. £222 for two nights. What we got was a room where you could make eye contact with the person in the shower from the bed. There was no visual separation between the bathroom and the sleeping area whatsoever. I must admit, Kieran has a great talent in finding hotel rooms that suitable for a married couple…

It did have a bum gun, which at that point felt like the one small win we were due.

The Zoo. Which Is Not What You Think.

Sunday in Bujumbura is quieter. It is a majority Christian country and a lot of things close, so the streets calm down and the whole city has a slightly different feel. So, I decided to go to the zoo!

I met a worker called Fabi there, and he was excellent. Genuinely warm, clearly passionate (I think that’s the right word?) about the animals, and very good at his job. The zoo itself operates on a philosophy that could be described as "anything goes." I fed a monkey. Stood next to a leopard named Jungle who had been brought over from Congo and fed her a guinea pig… a questionable decision on my travels I will admit.

I gave Fabi $100 USD because he was a cool guy, and was very honest. Those people deserve to get rewarded around the world

Ivan and the Sunday Beers

Drinking cold beer bottles near Lake Tanganyika

On the way out of the zoo I met Ivan. He was washing his clothes nearby in the drain, we got talking, and next thing we were sitting in a local spot watching football and drinking Amstel. 650ml bottles at 5%, two for the equivalent of about $1.50 combined. Ivan had just finished school, had his driving licence, but no car because of the fuel crisis, and no job. He told me life here was so bad that some mornings there was nothing to eat.

His dream was to fly to another country. Just to “get out”.

I gave him and his friends $100 USD and told them to split it equally, Youtube comments after I posted the video suggested that he did not split it lmao. But hey, I understand the state of the country. You have to do what you have to do sometimes in life, but I do believe in karmic consequences.

We also smoked Super Match cigarettes, which are the cheapest available and come in packaging that is essentially just paper. They cost 5,000 francs for a pack. They were extremely strong and tasted like regret. I gave them 7 out of 10 for the experience.

The Lake

Lake Tanganyika is enormous and it is right there on Bujumbura's doorstep. On one side you are having a beer at a lakeside bar. On the other side of the water, maybe 20 or 30 kilometres across, is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The walk back from the lake involved a partially flooded road, a small river crossing that I did not make cleanly, and one ended up with an entirely soaked left foot. The road had not even flooded from rain. The lake just rises and takes the road whenever it feels like it. There was no rain while we were in Burundi and that road was gone. In the rainy season, the roads get decimnated by the water and there’s even been hippos chilling in neighbourhoods around the city.

Final Dinner

We found a rooftop Indian restaurant called Paparazzi Bar for our last night. Timed it for sunset. Got Serengeti beers in, which are Tanzanian and 4.8% and actually pretty decent. Kieran rated his paneer butter masala a 6. The cheese naan was extremely oily and came in at a 4. I had the paneer butter masala, which was solid for Burundi. The full meal for two came to just over $18 USD.

Keep in mind that night we were sharing a bathroom with no door and no ventilation, and had just eaten a fairly aggressive amount of Indian food, mine and Kieran’s friendship definitely reached new levels.

One and Done

Kieran summed it up best. One and done.

I am genuinely glad we came. I think it is important to come to places like this, to put money directly into the hands of people who need it rather than skipping over countries because they are difficult or uncomfortable. But I am not going to romanticise it. The corruption is constant and exhausting. The military presence in Bujumbara is everywhere, and it is not subtle. People carrying AKs and RPGs on street corners is not a background detail, it is the environment. And the poverty is the kind that sits with you, not because it is dramatic but because the people inside it are so ordinary and so capable and just completely stuck.

There are genuinely good people here in Burundi, Fabi, Eric (well two), and a country full of dreams. I like to think that I could do more in these countries, but also I never want to sugarcoat an experience. I will tell the truth and share my authentic experience in every country I visit, and Burundi is no exception.

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