Africa Lite, Rwanda

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Pinch me, I don't think we are in Africa anymore…..  Arriving in Kigali, there were some serious differences to anywhere we had been in the previous year, except possibly Cape Town.

Kigali as Viewed from Smart Hotel

Pulling into town, we found that the bus from Burundi was not going to the downtown area, so we got out with a plan of catching another up to town.  Well, we soon found out that things on the buses work differently here: if there are 16 seats, that means 16 people, not 30!!!  For the life of us, we couldn't get a bus to take us, and not because they didn't have room, they just did not have room for our bags unbelievably.  It seems we have become Africanized! In any other country in Africa they would easily have squeezed us in with our bags in the aisle along with lumber, chickens, a goat and 7 sacks of rice or maize meal.  But not here. The buses that went by were 'full'. It appeared that even our bags needed to have their own seat (if one were available). We thought of catching a taxi, but none passed.  So even though it would be challenging with our big and little bags, we approached some motos (motorbike taxis), and then,

With Peter and Moses at Mr. Chips

no-one seemed to know where we wanted to go! Apparently place-names have changed! Although there's little difference between Place de L'independance and Boulevard de L'independance, they still didn't know where it was and even the hotel we were aiming for in the city, was beyond them. Frustrated, we decided to walk the 3km uphill to town. It wasn't much fun I can tell you in the heat. Searching for a hotel was exhausting and I was glad when we settled into one that was cheap - but that was still $25 (not good for the budget)! Over the next few days we found ourselves moving twice more: 'closed' for Memorial week, we camped at a friend of a friend's hostel (with cool bowling alley) for free which was too refuse of course! And then our luck got even better: while Martin sat waiting for me to return with glue after a flip-flop blow-out, an American guy pulled up in his car and started chatting. Having worked all over the world and now Rwanda, Peter was quite a character with lots of interesting funny

Hotel des Milles Collines - The Real Hotel Rwand

stories, and took us under his wing, drove us around and even put us up in his spare room for the next couple of days! Nice!

In spite of our initial rough entry into the capital, we couldn't help notice how cared-for, modern, and clean a city it was, and scenically sprawled over a number of rolling hills. In fact, Rwanda is known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, and its scenery is amazing (with even bigger hills than Burundi's similar picturesque countryside). Rwanda is 26,000 sq km and is the most densely populated country in Africa.  Unlike Burundi though, every little patch of land, if not built on, is tilled and farmed and with healthy looking crops probably due to its copious rainfall. Even the countryside is clean and 'tidy'. We wonder whether it is because Rwanda has laws
about litter. For instance, they don't allow use of plastic bags in the country, but use paper bags

Brochettes with Peter at Hotel des Milles Collines

instead (another story in terms of environmental impact of course). In fact, when we came through the Burindi-Rwanda border we were questioned about our big strong bin-liners that we use to keep our things dry!

In Kigali the people are dressed smartly and drive big fancy cars (we even saw quite a number of Infinities - our car). But as much as Rwanda and Kigali seem to be civilized, clean and very organized, every once in a while we'd see someone turning right from the lefthand lane, or someone carrying a basket of bananas or flour on their head, or perhaps get a whiff of pungent body odour. And we'd be reminded that, yes, this maybe be 'Africa-Lite', but it's still Africa! * Mush