Wow – what a start to our trip. People thought we were crazy to go to Rwanda. But this place is absolutely amazing and let me just say that the rest of the world need take a page out of the Rwandan book. 15 years after the horrific genocide, this country has picked itself up proudly, moved on and got themselves a kick arse attitude.
Let me briefly describe how we got here to Rwanda in the first place. We said our sad goodbyes in London with Jono helping us out one last time by helping us move the final things out of our home and organising a taxi to his place where he cooked a mean breaky! Thanks Jono – was fantastic! Then we left with butterflies in our stomachs. We headed for the tube and barely spoke a word due to our fear! Thanks to all those people who told us Rwanda was a terrible place to visit! Grr!
Anyway, got the flight no problems, arrived in Dubai at 2.30am and made the mistake of wandering around instead of bagging a nice reclined chair to sleep in! But we found a lounge that accepted us because of our credit card and curled up and got a few hours sleep in there. Next we were making the most of the internet and quickly finishing our blogs from a few months ago (oops) so we could start with a clean slate. Then we were off to catch our flight.
To our delight, we got to the gate and we were told we were flying in Business Class today. For what reason, we’re not sure! Might have been because they double booked our seats (we picked up our boarding cards in London), but we’re not sure. Needless to say, we didn’t ask, we just hot footed it to the BC cabin! Whoo!
We arrived at Nairobi and started to slightly panic because the Visa’s were taking SOOOO long to process. We thought our bags would have been flogged by this point, but all worked out ok. Headed to a different terminal for our flight to Rwanda. A tiny plane, they forgot to allocate our seats, so we were stuck up the back on our own!
Arrived in Kigali only to find 2 other Aussies getting Visa’s. We started chatting and one of them came from Bordertown – of all places in SA! We helped them out by sharing our taxi with them (apparently this is a must do) and we arrived at our hotel in one piece. Grabbed some grub and headed to bed.
Next morning, we walked to the tourism ORTPN office in Kigali and got our first taste of staring. Boy must we stand out. There have been a few close calls with some people almost crashing their bikes due to their need to stare at us for the absolute maximum amount of time possible.
Arranged our Gorilla Treking passports and tried to find the Rwandair office to reconfirm our return flights. Nowhere to be found 
Went to a bank to try to exchange money, got pointed in every direction with no help to be found so figured with the amount we were exchanging, US$6 was not much to lose to get the hotel rate.
Starting our adventure, packs on backs, we finally found the Rwandair office and met a guy from Uganda who was friendly enough. Shared our biscuits with the Rwandair staff as we waited for the systems to come back up after a power outage. Next was the bus stop to find a bus to Ruhengeri. Daunting. To say the least. People everywhere, trying to find out where we were going and sell their bus tickets to us. Finally found Viruga – who we were looking for and jumped on for a whole 30 second bus ride to the next depot (they could have told us that so we could walk it rather than lug our packs on and off the thing).
Slightly worried about my pack being out of sight for the trip, we watched as the countryside went by. Beautiful – they don’t call it the land of 1000 hills for nothing! People walking everywhere, kids waving as we go by, cool music playing in the bus – can’t get much better than this!
We arrived in Ruhengeri with no idea of where our hostel was. I’d tried to find out but the lack of address and/or maps of this place made it impossible. So we found a tour company and asked them. They smiled cheekily, so we didn’t feel too confident, so with their directions, we went into another shop and asked them. They gave us the same directions, so we thought we should be ok with that! Off we trek – more and more stares this time – to find our friends had indeed pointed us in the right direction. Boy were we glad to find this place!
Found a place to kick back with a few drinks and something to eat (God bless the Lonely Planet guide). Next day we wandered around town, grabbed some groceries, provided the entertainment for the locals purely by walking down the street as white people (yes, Kim is considered white here), kicked back again with more drinks and organised some transport for our Gorilla Trek A great day to relax into the fact we are now unemployed for 7 months! As we were walking home, we saw 6 buses go past and one of them had in large letters ‘UN’. Then we realised the 6 buses were full of UN soldiers with the unmistakable blue patch on their uniforms. Hmmm.
Five am the next morning, we were woken to what Kim said sounded like a riot. Nice. Obviously unable to sleep at that thought, the noises seemed to get closer, then further, then closer again. We had to get up at 5.45am anyway to start our Gorilla trek! We asked our driver what the noise was at 5am and at first he said the church next door. We said no way, it was the other direction and it was not church! He laughed and said it was the police academy doing drills! Funny how when something is in your head, you make assumptions to that effect.
Realising this, we drilled our driver for information on the genocide, daily life, attitudes toward the rest of the world given they were ignored in the genocide, attitude toward begging (of which they are not tolerant), politics, where the money for the Gorilla permit goes (US$500 a pop which gets pumped into conservation AND the local community) and corruption (of which there is very little and an active campaign against it).
So we get to the ORTPN office in Kinigi. With the 40 odd other people, we are divided into groups of 8 and told we were going to be visiting the Sabyinyo group of gorillas with a silverback (alpha-male) that weighs 220kg – the biggest in the region. Whoa! With our group of people from United States, France, UK and Australia, we set off and find out loads of stuff about Gorilla’s and the region along the way. We walk for only 45 minutes (with lots of breaks) before we reach the trackers who were out at 5am to find where the Gorillas had got to overnight. At that point, we must everything except our cameras with the trackers while we go into the dense forest and watch these amazing creatures.
The first time I saw one, I was taken aback – they are such magical things who are so placid, gentle and carefree. When they look you in the eye, your heart just melts. To see them in their natural habitat, going about their daily routine is indescribable and fascinating. Soon we see another and another. Then another falls out of a tree down the hill – obviously underestimating his own weight!
Next we find the silverback and we all stare at him in amazement. He is MASSIVE. And I mean MASSIVE. At 220kg, his head seemed the size of my torso! But he was gorgeous – and he posed for our photos in a number of different positions! We watched as a baby played with an infant, rolling over and over, swinging off branches and falling over backwards.
We then move to an overgrown part of the forest to find a black-back (younger male) who also poses after getting within a metre of us all. Fantastic! All you could hear was the muching of vegetation and the click of cameras…
Hundreds of photos and 63 minutes later, we head back down from the Volcanoes National Park in awe of these wonderful creatures. We have decided that nothing can beat this experience – and we’ve only just started our travels!
We give the French girl a lift back to the ORTPN office and talk about where we are going next. She tells us she is heading to Gisenyi to see Lake Kivu. So we decide to take her up on her offer to drive us there (she had a driver). So while we waited at her hotel, she tells us that she thinks she was staying there with Edward Norton, but she wasn’t sure. We didn’t think anything of it until a 4WD pulled up and out hopped none other than Edward Norton. Yes, there was no doubt at all it was him! We chatted to him about the Gorilla’s – he’d also seen them that morning. OMG! We were excited, but he was very cautious and seemed worried about any attention, so we acted cool as he sat in his 4WD in front of us as we waited for our friend to get ready. Arrgghh!
The drive to Gisenyi took 75minutes and it was a gorgeous drive. When we arrived, we were instantly impressed with Lake Kivu! How stunning! It was massive to say the least (you can’t see the other side) and it looked like a coastal beach! The driver took us to the Congo border – just to see it! But you can’t take photos of any government buildings over here 
But after a quick tour, they dropped us off at the bus stop and we wandered around town for a bit before heading back to Ruhengeri.
Next morning we were up bright and early to head back to Kigali. We booked in a bus and sipped Tonic water at a pub while we waited and watched the world go by. Squished into a tiny minibus with our packs on our laps, the 2 hour drive back to Kigali was slightly uncomfortable, but it’s such beautiful scenery that it barely mattered.
Once in Kigali, we headed straight for the Kigali Genocide Memorial where we spent the next 2.5 hours (we left at closing time) reading all about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 and also other occurrences of genocide throughout the 20th Century. It was kind of scary how much Kim and I didn’t realise went on in the world during even our own lifetimes. But that is the whole point of this memorial – to educate people on how it keeps happening over and over.
We caught a taxi-motor on the way back to the hotel, a motorbike taxi which was scary and fun all at once!
Next stop is Nairobi where we start our overland trip! So excited!!
Interesting things we didn’t know about Rwanda…
- There are lots of hawks in the sky.
- Plastic bags are banned.
- There is very little litter around – maybe because of the ban on plastic bags.
- Most people hire a driver for their whole stay in Rwanda, there weren’t many people like us who travel completely independent.
- The Rwandans seem to take particular care of foreigners – there were quite a few occasions where they would take us under their wing and make sure we were taken care of. However this is NOT the same when it comes to money, they tend to rip you off whenever possible!
- There are few beggars, which is nice, but they still do exist.
- The roads aren’t bad at all.
- We felt like zoo animals due to their stares, but we never felt threatened.
- You’re not allowed to take photos of government buildings and people don’t really appreciate you taking photos of them either – which makes you feel like you can’t photo anything… just in case!
- Kids love to wave at you!
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