On to Kigali

Feeling refreshed after our few day's R&R at Nyungwe, it was time to hit the road to Kigali.

On the road out of Nyungwe

As I've mentioned before, I never thought I would visit Rwanda never mind Kigali whose name conjures up images of hell.  It seems so strange driving through this beautiful and peaceful country passing smiling people and colourful farms and villages, that the worst atrocities since the holocaust took place here.  What on earth happened?

My holiday reading of An Ordinary Man (the book later made into the film Hotel Rwanda) is making the horror all the more real and making the juxtaposition all the more stark when looking out at the countryside. I have to say that I am not in a very positive frame of mind when we hit the outskirts of the city.

Luckily it's nowhere near as mental as Kampala as far as the traffic goes, although there is still plenty of it.  However it wasn't long before we realised that the street names on our map were nothing like the street names on the few signs that were around.  Luckily my sense of direction seemed to have returned, and we ended up in roughly the right area of town.  Stopping to ask a security man sitting beside a gate to a compound, he told us we were on the right road, but he hadn't heard of the guest house we were looking for.  We drove around a bit - in what was obviously a very nice neighbourhood - huge houses, big gardens, security guards everywhere, no pot-holes.

As we approached the same junction for the third time, and just as Karen was about to lose her temper, I spotted a tiny sign for the Kigali Guest Lux - up an unfinished road leading to a building site.

Google has the address as Avenue de Lac Kivu, and places the guest house in what is actually a cement factory.  In fact it is on what google maps calls KG 414 st.  I think.

The staff appear very surprised to see us, despite me booking months ago, but they showed us to an enormous room with a huge bed.  Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any hot water.

Trekking in the Nyungwe Forest

We did at least take a little exercise while in Nyungwe, when we joined a guided trek to visit a waterfall deep in the forest.

Our guide had come down to the lodge from the park headquarters, and you are expected to chip in for his taxi fare which seems fair enough, even though the lodge had already charged us $50 each for the trek.

Claud our guide was at best a little un-enthusiastic, and got us off to a pretty crappy start by beginning to explain about the forest while having us stand on a fire ants nest. Whether this was deliberate or not we don't know, but we all got a few sharp bites for our troubles.

Things improved as we got deeper into the forest, as we headed down into a deep gorge the plant and birdlife got better and better.  Vast trees and ferns dominate the landscape, and Claud told us that every time a scientific expedition goes into the forest they find at least one new species of tree.  Over 550 identified to far - mostly endemic to this part of the world.

We saw a few primates, and at one point a snake was spotted though neither Karen nor I managed to get a sighting of it.

It was pretty hot in the forest, especially out of the shade of the trees.  It would be a great place to explore on your own, but all walking has to be with a guide - probably a good idea as it would be pretty easy to get lost.  The walk is definitely for the able bodied - going down (and then back up)  the steep sides of a gorge.  The waterfall at the end is pretty nice and the spray helps to cool us down.

Drunken Nuns!

We spent a long time just lazing by the pool at Nyungwe.

Nyungwe swimming pool

The pool looks out onto the forest, and we were lucky enough to be entertained by the local troop of Angolan Colobus monkeys.  Watching their death defying leaps from one tree to another is a fun way to while away the time.

Angolan Colobus Monkey - flying!

The lodge feeds you pretty well, nothing too fancy - a small selection but generally tasty and well presented.  They have a limited (and expensive) wine list, mainly South African wines but the beer is cold and the coffee is stunningly good.

One evening we went for pre-dinner drinks and had a some fun watching a group of other guests.  These were two large, overweight men with big expensive watches, accompanied by 3 nuns.  At least they were dressed as nuns  but they sure as hell weren't acting like nuns!  There was a lot of drinking, loud giggling and at one point one of the nuns managed to drop and break her glass.  I wonder what the mother superior would have thought.  Very funny to watch - almost as good as watching the Colobus - who says humans and monkeys aren't related?

Umar- the world's politest waiter

We couldn't write about our visit to Nyungwe Forest Lodge without mentioning Umar, who was our waiter at most meals.  With his beaming smile, quiet voice and impeccable manners he is quite simply the World's Politest Waiter.

We felt so guilty when he had to admonish us for pouring our white wine into the red wine glasses on the table, when he had gone to get the specially chilled glasses from the freezer.  Oh the shame.

We cannot say enough nice things about Umar, and hope he has along and successful career.

The dining room at Nyungwe Forest Lodge

A phone call to Habari Car Rental

The receptionist in the hotel agreed to try to get the hire car people on the phone.  Which after an hour of trying she managed.

I kind of forced the company into sending someone down to get the car fixed, they wouldn't send a spare car despite that promise being made on their website.  I guess we were lucky that we didn't really have to go anywhere for a few days, so we could let the car hire company come and take it away for repairs and new tyres.

I cannot recommend the car hire company, despite their friendliness.  You shouldn't be able to hire an unroadworthy vehicles anywhere in the world.

But they did fix the power steering and put 2 brand new tyres on the car, leaving us with 2 dodgy ones and a barely legal spare.  At least this was better than what we had.

Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda

Our guilt at passing through the refugee camps and meeting the shoe-less boy was not helped by arriving at the Nyungwe Forest Lodge.  This is a pretty sumptuous place -  driven the 50m from reception to our lodge in a golf buggy and wine glasses kept in the freezer if you choose the white kind of place.

It's a working tea plantation, and just to make you feel even more guilty there are tea pickers working their butts off just outside our room.

Which is just gorgeous - a huge bed, fantastic bathroom, a balcony that looks onto the forest, cold beers in the fridge, a chaise longue.....

We try to wash off our guilt in a hot bath!  Hot water, what a luxury.

We were invited to the evening tea ceremony,

A very polite waiter explains the tea making process and then talks you through a tasting after allowing the teas to infuse for the right amount of time.









There are some lovely cakes and biscuits to be eaten while taking the tea.  Karen, who hates tea, was presented with some of the nicest tasting coffee in the world so she could feel involved.

More car problems

We fuelled up at Gitarama, and bowled down the beautiful tarmac to Butare where the road heads off to the Nyungwe Forest.

This is one of the main roads to the DRC, and passing along it you drive through massive refugee camps run by the UNHCR.  These are tented encampments, on steep hills housing people displaced by the conflicts in the Congo and in Burundi.

These hill top camps are pretty sobering, especially knowing where we are going to be sleeping for the next few nights.

After about an hours drive from Butare, we entered the Nyungwe Forest, one of the last remaining montane rain forests left in Africa.  The temperature here is kept at a nice level, as we are pretty high up.

At a quiet spot on the road, which seems very rare in Rwanda, we stopped for a pee.  The trick to this is to stop very quickly, and jump out and pee as fast as you can, because it will only be a few moments before someone comes along to find out what you are up to.

After having our quick pit stop, we noticed that once again we had a flat tyre.  Oh for goodness sake.

I got the jack out, and out of nowhere a wee boy appeared and started talking away in a language we couldn't understand.  Almost everyone we had met so far spoke very good English or a little French, but this lad had neither.  He also didn't have any shoes, and the clothes he was wearing were filthy and full of holes.  This was also pretty rare in Rwanda, as the kids were generally spotlessly clean.

He helped me undo the nuts, and remove the wheel and then replace it with the spare.   A man on a bike joined us, but he just stood around making helpful comments to the boy.  I gave the lad a few coins for helping us, but what he really wanted (according the to bike man) was a pair of shoes - did we have any spare
??

The power steering gave out as we headed down the drive way to the Nyungwe Forest Lodge.