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Published: March 11th 2019
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I got to Munsanze in good nick, no major adventures and no problems bar some slightly hairy places where they were doing some road works, slowly I went past with a zillion brown faces looking at me, there can’t be many muzungis on motorbikes, lots of waving and smiling.
I found myself a half decent hotel and just rode a round watching life as it went on, unimpressed by my presence.
Basically I’m just making time as not to arrive in Kigali in three days time.
Treks are out, according to my surgeon I should be gentle with my new knee, so no gorillas or golden monkeys for me.
There are very few wild if any wild animals about, Rwanda’s on of the most densely populated countries in Africa so basically there’s no room for wildlife.
As for animal husbandry the goat seems to be the number one animal and the odd cow
I’ve seen two dogs, one owned by ex pats and one at a hostel, not that i really mind, I do not care for those places where there are large packs of dogs roaming about, rabies is not supposed to be much fun
The first English words kids
out in the country side learn must be; money and as the they get older they learn to say; give me money, a bit depressing.
I went for , what was supposed to be a ride around the lake close to Munsanze, very picturesque road, all dirt with fantastic scenarios and good fun and mostly boys shouting for money.
In South Africa there was always a small feeling of violence in the background, not so in Wanda, people look at me with curiosity, who wouldn’t.
The volcano (es) have dumped a lot of lava on what was to become farmer’s fields, the work around mounds of lava with their hoes, some fields are more lava than soil, they are really working their arses off.
Nobody has stick arms and swollen bellies, but they are all lean from hard work.
There are kids everywhere, maybe someone should introduce contraception or give everyone a TV.
I cheated yesterday and went almost commando, so now I’ve got a sunburn on my thighs, so much for preaching the gospel and not fallowing it yourself.
The food still sucks.
Back in Munsanze it was time for a coffee, the coffee shop was next to the
junction that was closed due to the bicycle race, total African pandemonium, pushing and shoving trying to get out even though the Peelers were there.
So I had a coffee and a brownie and just waited for the racers to pass then I gave it another 15 minutes so that I would not end up as road kill.
I went for a spin down to some ”cultural” center , what a dump that was, well I'm probably very ”nekulturny”
And finally time for a sundowner and some moching before dinner.
The next morning whilst checking out I saw them washing my bike in the parking lot, top notch hotel.
I hit the road to Gisenyi, another town in Africa without even half a horse, luckily the was a froggie couple that I could hang out with and practise my French at that.
French is still a widely used language in Rwanda so I grateful that my brain has not shut down completely, I learnt French 40 and some years ago and it still works, yihaa.
We went to a church where they were setting up an electric guitar and a mike with an amp, one guy played and the other
one sang and people were coming into the church and started to clap hand and dance a little, they started out with two and soon they were a dozen and a girl fetched a drum and then it really got going.
Then it was time for a sundowner and we found some bar up near a market and had a tall cold one, yummy.
Going back the power went, and it got very dark but with the flashlights in the cell phones no legs were broken.
A half decent Italian dinner and it was bed time.
The next morning I took of to Kibuye following the Congo/ Nile trail that the had opened a while back, a nice gravel road bar in some slopes where the rain has washed most of the gravel away and left rocks and bed rock, a flash back to Nepal, a very nice ride indeed.
The when I got to Kinunu that trail sort of petered out and I was at loss of how to get back to the main road, and then it started to rain, with thunder to go, nice!
I stopped in the village square and sat down to check out
a pic I taken of a map, btw no maps were to be had, maybe next week or month they told me in Gisenyi.
I had not more than sat down when I had half the kids in the village hanging over my shoulder looking at what I was doing, smiling and jostling each other to seeing what the muzungu was doing.
I then spotted some people my age and asked if anyone spoke French and yes one did and he pointed me in the right direction, a road worthy of Nepal any day of the week.
The road ended in a junction with a newly made paved road in top condition, and I had a good run down to Kibuye, a semi decent hotel with a decent curry, finally a meal that I enjoyed.
I was running out of options on what to do in Rwanda, if you don’t trek the preciously few things to do.
So I might leave a couple of days before I had originally planned.
Check the maps, yet again and if i did not stop in Nuyungwe national forest for a trek, I had a nice 200 km run to the next town, yes
yes!
So after a hearty breakfast I got on the bike and went for it, finally a ride longer than two hours!
Some 5 hrs later i arrived in Butare aka Hoye and some very roads and two bouts of rain, it does get a bit cool when the rain hits.
Along the road in the national forest where loads of soldiers patrolling the road, heavily armed, each patrol, 4 guys, even carried a machine gun with a tripod.
Poachers killed of the las elephant some 35 years ago, but I did see two monkeys.
The hotel in Butare was nice but way out in the sticks, even the map supplied by the hotel was wrong, I asked a strapping lady if she knew the place, and yes she did and then started to explain the way.
She stopped in mid sentence and told a boy to jump up on my pillion and show me the way, a good working sit nav.
On the way to Kigali I stopped in Nyanza to have a dekko at the king's palace, well a replica of the king's palace.
A cozy little hut if there ever was one, outside
the king's bed chamber the was a little nook where a choir would stand and sing love songs whilst the king was doiung his kingly thing to one of his many wives, Spotify, eat shit an die!
The road to Kigali was a road no more no less, the traffic increased as I approached the city and was a bit mayhemish for a little while.
I went back to where i stayed when I arrived and went out for dinner and fermented beverages.
My flight's departure time was at 1.55 am in two days time so I took my bike and went to see the fabled 1000 hills distillery, cottage industry, quite posh making gin, vodka and whisky, the whisky was aged 3 years i.e. not very good.
Then I went for a random spin and got well and truly lost, and the sat nav did not really help out so I had to ask a bloke to point me in the right direction. I did get back to the finer parts of Kigali and stopped at the first cafe I'd seen on this trip, They had beer also.
Then I had had it, back
to the hotel to kill time and charge up my musical devices, my noise cancelling gizmo and my e-book,
No way I can fly without a book.
Things about Wanda with a R; it's the cleanest third world country that I've been in, traffic will stop when you put your foot on the street, very few people smoke, I saw two, very few dogs.
And last but not least, Umuganda, every last Saturday of the month is community work day, and it's co
Finally it was time to go and so i went.
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