Road Trip 2019

 

Had a fun week away. My friend Harris was on the road with his research assistant, Rose. They kindly invited me along for a chance to get out of Kigali. First stop, Gisakura, about six hours south of Kigali and 15 miles from Cyangugu, on the edge of Nyungwe National Forest.

Bye Bye Kigali

View Through the Sunroof

Rice Paddies

Our first stop was an extremely strange guesthouse that was still under construction. It was EAR Peace Guesthouse, attached to a nearby church. It looked amazing as we first arrived.

The rooms were nice and clean, with spacious bathrooms and a comfortable bed.

They put us in three rooms next to each other, looking out across the tea plantation. The only problem was - there weren't any steps to the rooms! It was an extremely steep, break-neck scramble down either a mud slide or a grassy embankment. My friend fell, and I have an ankle injury and could barely make it. The staff brought walking poles for us and offered to wash the mud out of our clothes afterwards, but it was definitely one of the stranger experiences I've ever had in Rwanda. 

The view across the tea fields was nice enough, only it was partly obscured by building materials and the builders turned up just before 7 a.m. the next morning to start smashing rocks outside our window!

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

There was also another grave problem. After a six-hour drive, we were drawn like moths to a flame when we saw the little plastic Mutzig table on the lawn.

"Please could we order two beers?"

"No."

"Sorry?"

"We're Christians."

Ah, yes. A common thing you need to watch out for in Rwanda. There are a lot of Christian guesthouses that seem to believe the local vicar doesn't like a tipple, and the Pope doesn't drink wine. Being in the middle of absolutely nowhere, in the dark, it was quite an adventure to hunt down a local bar and bring back our own booze. 

We sat outside, enjoying the way raindrops twinkled off the trees like Christmas lights, and putting the world to rights.

Then I headed to bed, to snuggle up with the local wildlife - as there was no mosquito netting either.

Bite the good bite.

The next day, Harris and Rose headed off to work, and the staff were kind enough to bring breakfast down to my porch because there wasn't a cat in hell's chance I'd make it up the bank on my own.

Then I sat on my bed to continue editing my latest novel.

In the evening, we decided to go in search of a bar. We found this place called Nyungwe Forest Lodge on the map and decided to check it out. It's a nice drive through a tea garden.

But once we got there, a guard stopped us at the barrier. It was all he could do to be bothered to come over to our car.

"No," were the first words out of his mouth.

No what, we wondered.

He singled out Rose and walked round to the passenger side to talk to her, beginning 'Umva.' ('Listen up').

Turns out it's a super exclusive place that, according to TripAdvisor, charges around a million and a half francs per night. Shame they didn't invest any of that in manners. The guy was the rudest security guard I've ever encountered. No, 'Hello,' 'Can I help you?', 'Sorry, it's pre-booking only, but can I recommend a little place down the road...' We were extremely glad to drive away.

Luckily, our second attempt was much better. We found a place called Hill Top View Hotel, near our guesthouse. Really unexpected treat, and completely deserted. We headed up to the restaurant, which had a nice view out across Lake Kivu, and the lobby was spectacularly lit, with a whole wall of traditional imigongo. 

The food was a little odd - a flat lasagna and garlic Smash - but the staff were friendly and we had a good night.

The next day we hit the road and headed off to one of my old favourite haunts, Bethany, in Kibuye. Thankfully, with mosquito nets!

The next morning, I woke up early and caught a dramatic sunrise.

Last time I stayed here, about three years ago, there was a lot of loud music until the early morning because of a conference, and Dolly Parton blasting over breakfast. This time, they'd turned all the music off. I definitely didn't miss Dolly Parton, but I did miss the fishermen, who used to sing as they rowed out in the evenings. Apparently they've also been told to keep it down. A few defiant voices rose that morning, though. The fishermen of Kibuye have branched into modern pop, with a rousing rendition of Ed Sheeran's Perfect.

I grabbed my towel and headed down to the lake for a morning swim, which was wonderful. The water was so warm.

View from room.

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

I settled down with my book to finish editing. My story is about the Irish god of the sea, so it was the ideal place to do it, right on the lake shore.

On my way down to swim in the morning, I bumped into  Stephania, a friend from Kigali. Rwanda is such a small place, you're always bumping into people you know. She was there for work and joined us in the evening for food and drinks with her colleague. It turned into a really nice evening, watching the sunset with plenty of laughter.

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

The next day we headed back to Kigali and I drove all the way. I've had a lot of driving experience over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's reassuring to know that I still can, though entering Kigali in the dark was pretty stressful. The lack of lighting and traffic system are utterly crazy in places. There's one junction in particular, near Nyabugogo Bus Park, which is a total free-for-all. You just have to close your eyes and hope for the best. 

After a relaxing night back in our own beds, Harris and I decided to finish the road trip the next day with a trip to Lake Muhazi with our friend Solvejh. Five years ago, I had the most lovely day out at a place called Water Sports. You should never try to recreate these things, but we gave it a go anyway. It's particularly hard to get there, along village mud tracks, but it's a really interesting drive. You get to observe village life and all the activity going on there. I didn't take many pictures as my phone battery was dying, but Solvejh took some really professional ones. Hope to share at some point.

It was a bit disappointing. The place has really gone downhill and it took a lifetime for the food to come. Also, despite it professing to be a water sports centre, you can't actually get in the water. It's absolutely teaming with snails, so the risk of bilharzia is extremely high. You just sit on the grass and look at the lake. Still, we had a nice day and it was good to be out of Kigali.

Rounded off the day with food and beer at our local.

Automation

A picture of my street. Don't think I've posted one before? Local shop to the right. 

And a nice view of the sky over the rooftops the other night.

 

It's been a really nice week so far. A few friends are back in town. Solvejg is back with a view to returning permanently. We went out to our ladies' lunch club, about ten or twelve of us who meet up on a very irregular basis for food and conversation. I'd already had dinner, so I went straight for the chocolate mud cake, which was gloopily delicious.

Had a movie night with my neighbour, Didier. He's as hooked on Game of Thrones as I am, so we gathered together with snacks to watch the last ever episode.

What can I say? It happened.

Everyone who knows, knows what I mean.

My friend Harris is also back in town. We met up at PiliPili and amazingly our friend Andy was there playing a gig. He's the guitarist for Viva Beats, our favourite band in Kigali. He also put a string on the piano a while back. 

We did more live music at CasaKeza, where a band rocked up playing Bella Ciao from La Casa de Papel, one of our favourite series. They also had a cute little gecko audience.

 

 

 

Braved the wet season to go see Habyarimana's Palace, which he hadn't been to before. Really disappointing. It used to be this very strange house full of secret gun cupboards, snake pits, rooms for witch doctors and interrogations. Now, they've stripped the whole place down, declared that nothing of its history be told to tourists, and just hung paintings about the place. 

They've moved the art gallery from Nyanza to here. It really doesn't work. No information about any of the artists, no proper lighting, no café, no art-related gift shop. It's just a place to store art. The tour literally goes: 'painting, painting, painting, plane crash, painting,' with no context for why you're looking at a plane crash or what the house was all about. Personally, I think it was much more interesting before, but luckily it was National Museum Day, so we got in for free. 

Once the rain stopped enough that we could leave, we headed to Kisi for tilapia and a fair amount of daytime drinking. This was much more satisfying.

 

Harris works outside Kigali a lot, so often hires a car. I'd been talking about my mum and Merrick visiting later in the year, and considering transport options. I love driving in the UK, but don't own a car in Rwanda and have never had the courage to hire one. As Harris was back early and had some time before giving the car back, he offered to take me for a spin. He took me to collect some pet food from a clinic in Kicukiro, as it's situated along some really quiet back streets. 

It wasn't just my first time driving in Rwanda. It was my first time in an automatic. A truly mad experience. You can simply roll to a stop on a hill and it just stays there. No clutch, no gears, no handbrake - it's some form of witchcraft. 

It appears physically impossible to roll backwards into something, but knowing that and believing that are two separate things. After a lifetime of remembering to put the car in neutral, using the handbrake whilst parked, finding the bite and easing off the clutch, it felt like a total mind melt. It's supposed to make driving easier, but I felt anxious that I'd forgotten to do something. 

I did get used to it a lot faster than I was expecting though, and I have to say, I like it. The only thing I found a bit problematic was that there's not much control over acceleration for overtaking and pulling away from speed bumps. There is a sort of break point on the accelerator which, if you push down hard enough, thrusts it up a gear, but when you're used to controlling acceleration with a flick of your wrist, it's a little unnerving. When you really want the car to go, it sort of thinks about it. On the other hand, that makes it an excellent car for braving Kigali traffic. After a couple of laps  around the leafy suburbs, we headed for the open road. 

We did a little off-roading down a dirt track, which was excellent. It's a really great car for that. Then we got tangled up in the thick of a moto cloud at an unmanned junction where the traffic lights weren't working. About a thousand motos and thirty cars all bustling to get across the intersection. Fairly terrifying. Mirrors didn't help, because all you could see was a wall of motorbikes surrounding you. It wasn't so different from driving in London, though. Everybody moving so slowly you're unlikely to hit anything. I even practised my reverse parking (pictured). Harris was a star. He hardly screamed at all, and I only drove on the wrong side of the road once.

Last night was awesome fabulous. Went to Pacha Club in Kimironko with Maja and Vincent. Viva Beats were playing and Andy was on top form. I'll post some clips here later, once I have time to go through them. We danced until around 1 a.m. There was a large group of Burundians celebrating a birthday, so a lot of dancing going on. Had such a good time and burnt off a lot of energy. I'm finally feeling back to my old self again. Whatever I was sick with has passed and I'm back to normal.

Harris and his research assistant, Rose, are off visiting hospitals over the next week, and very kindly invited me along. They're going to be training, I'm going to be holidaying. Headed down to Cyangugu, then back up through Karongi. Will be nice to get out of Kigali for a bit. Proof copies of my latest novel arrived the other week, so I'll take them with me and get editing. 

Just Sign Here

Had a productive day, yesterday. Became a founding member of EBAR, the European Business Association Rwanda. Established to strengthen business ties between EU countries and Rwanda, and good for networking and sharing information about doing business in the country.

 

We were all there at 9 a.m. for the signing, so afterwards I headed to Kigali Art Centre and treated myself to a yummy breakfast.

 

 

Recovering from a month of being unwell. Shivers, aches and general yuck. All the tests came back clean so not sure what it was, but been dewormed for good measure.

It's currently avocado season, a half-hundred ton falling off the tree in my garden, which means I'm eating this for the next month:

Unfortunately, my cats have been lunching on the local wildlife. Brought in two birds this month and sadly neither survived, despite my attempt to build a safety nest for them to recover. People say you should just leave things once they're caught, but cats play with their food for hours.

 

I've been working on a lot of pianos lately. Bugesera Lodge just out of town has a 70-year-old piano they brought with them from Tanzania. It's not in great shape, so I'm trying to get it playing again. 

 In return, they feed me the most delicious meals.

The trip out there is lovely and green, with dramatic wet-season skies.

I've also started teaching technical English to one of my editing clients. I took a TEFL course about twelve years ago and this is the first time I've used it. It's actually quite good fun as we're exploring more advanced aspects of English and how to present complex information in an easy to understand way, rather than beginners' English. The classes are indoors when it's raining and outdoors when it's sunny.

There was a beautiful rainbow in the sky when I finished teaching yesterday. On the moto home it stretched right the way across the valley, but I was carrying a lot of stuff so couldn't take another photo.

 

Due to being ill, I went a month without alcohol. My friends Sameer and Justin were in town on Friday and helped remedy that with fabulous passion fruit mojitos at The Hut. I was worried one drink might floor me, but I survived.

So, it has been a time of good food and recovery lately. Hopefully got my mum and Merrick coming out to visit later this year. If you would like to visit Rwanda, RwandAir has a special offer - 30% off flights if you book before 20th May 2019.