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Africa » Rwanda » Ville de Kigali » Kigali
April 2nd 2009

Published: April 21st 2009

Additional maps: Untitled

We'll after nearly missing my flight in Joburg I arrived in Kigali at 1:30am, the flight was boring and there was only like 20 people on the flight! When I arrived in kigali my bag was not there,
i then go out to see if my tour guide is there waiting for me but he isint so now I have no bag, no hotel,no phone and no one speaks english! It only then dawned on me that i am actually on my own.
At least I had a english speaking member of staff that was trying to sort out my bag, there was also another guy that didnt have his bag the second time this week the first in Zimbabwe where he had to pay a bribe.He was also pissed off that his suit and camera equipment was missing as he was meeting the president on Saturday!
The member of staff helped me find a place to stay and drove me there, it was called the Pallase hotel and cost 50USD totally not worth the price. In the morning I managed to use someones phone and and ring the tour company as I thought they assumed I was not on the flight, when i got through they thought I was arriving the following day!! Anyway the driver picked me up from the hotel and took me around kigali which is a small bustling city set on a few hills, there are houses one the side of the hills and it is full of people.they all stare at you and shout mzungu or bonjour or money please.
I then managed to get some batteries and a sim card for my phone, he then took me to kigali memorial centre which was intresting. The first section is the history of rwanda then it moved on to indapendence and then finally the genocide its self, there were several rooms with skulls and bones in and you can see where the machete hit ther person on the head or gun shots.Another room had clothes and personal items such as ID books with blood stains on, the third room had photos of a few people who died in the genocide.
Upstairs there was a room dedicated to the children who died and a room about other genocides around the world.Outside there were rose gardens and mass graves that had over 250,000 people buried in!
That afternoon we headed up to Ruhengeri, the drive took about 2hours but the scenery was amazing there were bannana plantations and villages and everyone seems to be working in the fields.When we finally arived in Ruhengeri the drive took me through the town which is one main road a few shops and thats about it, he then dropped me off at a hotel were i went straight to my room as I had only had 2 hours sleep the night before and I had such tooth ache!

3rd April:-
Well today is the day i have been waiting for Im going to go see the mountain gorillas!
My driver picked me up early and drove me the the national park headquarters, where you sign in and get a briefing from the park rangers.We then drove to the drop off area just outside the national park, the drive there was another great drive, you could see all the volcanoes and there were small villages along the way.There were only 7 of us in total in our group along with the 2 guides, porters, trackers and 2 guy from the army who apparently protect us from elephants and other dangerous animals. We all began to walk through farm land, we then came across the buffalo wall which surronds the whole national park in Rwanda, DRC and Uganda.We climbed over the wall and we then came across a elephant trail! you coulod still see the elephant footprints- but we never saw any!
Anyway after walk for about 20minutes in dense forest and bamboo forest our guides told us to stop, I dint think it was the gorillas as we were only walking for about 20mins and usually it can take up to an hour! But there it was a gorilla standing in the path in front of us, it looked so fake, and then it began walking towards us so we all had to go to one side while the gorilla walked past, then the mother along with her baby on her back then the big silverback who is apparently the largest silverback in the Virunga's!!
we then followed the gorillas through thick mud back over the buffalo wall outside the national park, and there they were about 10 in total eating the bark from the trees!It was fantastic that they were out in the open and we were able to get some great pics.i couldnt belive how close we got to the gorillas we were within a couple of meters! the baby was so cute jumping around and climbing the trees!
Well after our hour was up we began walking back to the jeeps, and then we saw golden monkeys the most endangered primate in africa! They were quite far away but we still saw them and usually you haver to pay like $100 to see thwm so it was a nice bonus!
Later that afternoon my driver took me back to kigali and along the way stopped so i could take pictures, back in kigali i stayed in the Sky hotel which was disgusting the boiler was broken so the floor in the batroom was flooded, shower didnt work, toilet didnt flush properly and tiles cracked and overal dirty! And then to top it all off i still dont have my bag so all i have is muddy clothes then i delete the pics on my camera by acciedent!! Anyway they can be retrived when i go home which means u will only see the pictures of the gorillas in a couple of months.

4th April
well today i dedcided to explore Kigali, well i actually wanted to go to ther post office but i got lost but this rwandan girl helped me out called sandra she showed me directions but i srill couldnt find it!
anyway i managed to go buy soom food as i didnt want to eat from that dirty hotel.Kigali is so clean there is like no rubbish and apparently the last sunday of every month everyone cleans which i think is a great idea! i also had to go to a camera shop to buy a new memory card.
Later that afternoon i tried to find out where my bag was and after several failed attempts the guty who helped me when i arrived phoned and said he has my bag but he is leaving in 10 minutes to go home so i have to get there asap, so i go down to reception to the helpful staff and they said a taxi would cost me 80,000 frw which is ridiculous, but she also suggested a motor taxi which i decided to take.it is a motorbike and I was terrified at first i had no idea what to hold onto while he was speeding and dodging cars, motorbikes, people, animals and potholes!well i eventually got my bag so now I can leave kigali and travel aroud the country.

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