Judy and Bob's big trip: Rwanda

Rwanda

Bob and I had the morning to ourselves in the Serengeti and then Harley collected us and took us to the airstrip. The weight allowance was 15 kg supposedly, including hand luggage, as it was a small plane and we were a bit nervous about that. We did not comply! We discovered that there was no building at the airstrip so forget checking in and having your luggage weighed etc. We waited in the vehicle until the 12 seated Cessna landed. Harley loaded our luggage and we climbed on board. We flew over the Serengeti making 2 stops to collect and drop off other travellers.

The third stop was in Mwanza on the Tanzanian border. We all had to get off the plane, collect our luggage, go through immigration and customs to leave Tanzania and then climb back on board for the last sector to Kigali. Quite a process.

When we arrived in Kigali and cleared customs there was no one to meet us and drive us to our hotel as arranged. We were a bit concerned as it was a new country and we didn’t know the system. We also wondered if a booking had been made at our hotel.

We learnt that there was confusion about the time we arrived because there is a one hours time difference between Tanzania and Rwanda. We didn’t discover this until the next day. We had left the airport before our driver arrived. The Kenyan pilot of our plane came out of the airport and saw us looking lost and said to go with him. His driver would drop him off and then take us to our hotel – the Kigali Serena. We were quite overwhelmed. This worked perfectly and we had a nice chat on the way. We really appreciated his very generous gesture.

I liked Kigali immediately. It has wide good roads and lots of new buildings. The people were so friendly when we booked into the hotel we felt at home straight away.

25/9/13

We spent the morning in the hotel and were then picked up by Herbert – our driver for the next 3 days. We went to a restaurant for lunch and then commenced the drive to Kingi near Musananze where we stayed the night at The Gorilla Lodge before going to see the mountain gorillas the next day. The drive took 3 hours. We stopped for some photos on the way. Rwanda’s economy is largely made up of subsistence agriculture. In the area where we traveled towards the mountains the volcanic soil is very fertile. Some of the land is terraced and it seems every square meter is used to grow things. There are lots of banana trees, wheat, potatoes and beans.

We got a good view of dormant volcanoes in the distance.

On their way to somewhere!

People seemed quite well dressed and extremely friendly. We have had to be careful about taking photos of people elsewhere and especially in the Masai Mara they would only pose for money. Here they are very happy to have their photos taken and even encourage it. When you ask them “No problem” is the usual response.

See what I mean by using every piece of available land to grow things.

There are lots of mud brick houses that people have built themselves that seem quite sturdy. They use bamboo as reinforcement.

We drove through a couple of towns and along the way saw many people going about their business.

African people are adept at carrying things on their head. Some seem to have very heavy loads. I guess it means that they are better balanced than carrying heavy things on one side as Europeans usually do. I wonder how these different methods evolved.

This mother and baby were off to work in the fields for the day I think.

Beehives

Bikes are useful!

We were told a lot of people spend their days gathering food for their cows and carry it back to feed them as they don't own land for the cows to graze on.

The Gorilla Lodge we stayed in overnight was quite comfortable. It is quite high and cool at night. We had quite a large room with a nice lookout. There was a fire in the room that the staff lit in the evening and came back and stoked later. We also found a hot water bottle in our bed when we returned from dinner. Lovely.