Ngorogoro, Serengeti, Mwanza, Biharamulo, Kigali, Lake Kivu, Lake Saki. (Tanzania/Rwanda)
Day 148:
After in insanely windy night we woke up inside a freezing wet cloud on the crater rim at Simba camp. It did not matter much, we had some distance to travel to the gate and we had to reach it by 10am to avoid paying another $140 for another day’s park fees. We had no intention of using the cold showers before leaving, so simply got up, packed up and had our coffee in the car while driving.
Within half an hour of bouncing down the dusty track we started noticing brighter skies and further visibility and suddenly, as if someone had lifted a curtain, we were out of the cloud mass and into the brightest, clearest and most golden morning in the bush you can imagine! I made a comment that we could have been in Namibia’s Damaraland at the time. The semi desert landscape, rocky roads and dry river beds added to this feeling and the relative peace and quiet and feeling as if we were the only people around was fantastic after the immersion into safari vehicle herds of the previous few days. We passed some seemingly informal Masai settlements and the odd cattle herder or two, pausing for a photograph at a particular herd. This was, not surprisingly met by some young kid running towards the car with his hand outstretched. A truly African handshake of begging, instilled by idiot travellers and Wazungu from years gone by. Shame on them! Again!
We took a short break at the official Serengeti boundary, marked by an entrance gate and sign before heading towards the monetary entrance. A safari vehicle driver with no clients in his car flagged us down and told us about a sighting a few kilometres down the road. He had just spotted two Cheetahs who had taken down a Gazelle and explained where we should drive slow and keep a look out. We found the band of brothers exactly where he had explained and almost as rare as the sighting, was the phenomena that we were alone. Not a single vehicle was in sight. We sat there, by the roadside, marvelling at the savage way these two predators were demolishing their meal. The seeme3d to take turns at resting in between bites and the jackal that was around waited patiently for their turn. The Cheetah seemed hungry though as they kept on eating and resting, eating and resting for a full hour before our time was up and we had to hit the road again. It was 9:45 and we had to reach the gate before 10:00. Our fantastic “welcome to the Serengeti” sighting was, in any case, invaded by others by this time, as could be predicted.
We made the gate with minutes to spare and I explained to the official that we had a small plan to beat the system, but needed his assistance, or at least permission. The exit gate to Ngorogoro and the entry gate to Serengeti was in fact one building. We however did not want to enter the Serengeti before 13:00, but had to leave Ngorogoro before 10:00, so after checking out I asked if we would be allowed to hang around in the car park on the side we had come from for a while. The official knew exactly what I was up to and agreed, smiling. So the making of coffee, reading of books and a little writing of blogs commenced. I started noticing that the car park was filling up more and more and by the time we were having lunch at the back of Maggie, there were no parking spaces left. We had obviously chosen the prime spot in the shade of a Camel thorn tree which, for the lunch hour was the most sought after real estate in the place.
I was close to finished with the formalities of stuffing my face when we were approached by a friendly man requesting that we move our vehicle. His reasoning was that the massive overland truck, packed to the rafters with the great unwashed deserved the shade more than we did for their lunch. My brain said: “Piss off dude! We were here first”. However, what came out of my mouth was a very polite “Sure man, let me just finish my tomato”. He stood within a meter of me watching as I chew the last two slices of lunch and as I moved out of the parking spot I realized my mistake. The parking lot was full and I had no where to go. It was time for us to move on anyway, so I double parked next to a safari vehicle with a flat tyre and we headed to the office.
The formalities took quite some time. It was obviously the norm to stop at this point for lunch and we found ourselves in a slow moving cue for the cashiers. We did not mind that in the least! The longer we could delay our paperwork, the longer we would have in the park the next day. After not being able to pay with VISA (The norm) as the machine was broken and paying with cash in US$ (Which was a massive issue to the man behind the bullet proof glass) we received our permit and were on our way once again.
Within two kilometres of the gate, the foretold Serengeti legacy hit us square in the face… We were warned about the state of the roads in the park and we were as prepared as we could be to deal with it. Besides, we had conquered the extreme corrugations of Namibia’s Kaokoland before and knew all about unmaintained or unmaintainable dirt roads in Africa. However, it has to be said that neither amount of explanation, nor any amount of warning could ever prepare any vehicle owner for the onslaught of the ruts described as “corrugation” in the Serengeti. The seemingly wide road, shared by delivery trucks and safari vehicles and a single, lonely self drive vehicle (That was us) was also insanely dusty. I tried to pass a truck at one point and apart from not being able to see if there was any oncoming traffic, the vibrations from the corrugation was so bad that we started bouncing off the road. I had no control and the weight of Maggie drifted towards the side of the road regardless of which direction the steering wheel was pointing. At the time we driving about 30km/h and I suddenly grasped why so many people have reported failing shock absorbers on that road. It truly was the worst road we had ever driven and even while on it I could not believe how bad it actually was.
Catt navigated us off the main road and onto minor tracks as soon as she could. This meant that we would not reach our public camp site at Nyani Camp for an early afternoon shower. It also has to be said that it was still unclear whether the public camp sites actually had showers at all. The guy at the gate did not know, but doubted it. What it did mean was that Maggie would possibly survive the journey and that we could put dentures back in and remove kidney belts.
After the dust from a couple of vehicles approaching us from the front disappeared, we were found ourselves suddenly immersed into the Serengeti Plains. It was a massively vast expanse of nothing, with nothing on it. We knew that we had missed the migration by a few weeks and also knew that herds had not been in that part of the park for months, but I don’t think either one of us were prepared for the empty spaces that marked every millimetre between us and the horizon. A two hour drive later we had managed to see three more vehicles and one Gazelle and I was starting to feel a little ripped off.
The retreat that was the uncorrelated track that meandered through rocky hills and open plains took us past dried up streams and endless savannah until we eventually spotted our first tree. We were approaching the area known as Seronela which was, as far as we could gather, the centre of the park, and the location of its headquarters. Totally unimpressed by the lack in sightings and the new presence of Tsetse flies we reached our designated, busy camp site around mid afternoon. We had decided to go straight there to check it out before the afternoon game drive and that proved a great decision. It was littered with wazungu, safari vehicles and tents on the ground as Simba was the night before, but we found a private and suitable spot to park up for the night where we had at least some false sense of protection in between a tree stump and some shrubs. We also discovered a couple of showers, complete with water (Cold but running) and four holes in the ground for toilets. (Two for each sex) It satisfied our curiosity and after a brief, unhelpful chat to another driver and a cup of coffee we set of to see what the Serengeti’s afternoon had in store for us.
The driver offered for us to follow them. The second thing that no amount of explaining of preparation can ever keep you from astonishment once you experience it first hand was the sheer amount of dust around. Apart from the Serengeti being rather flat, as can imagined, the roads were so over used that the dust became a fine mist, getting in everywhere and covering everything. We simply had to drive with windows up and aircon on just to survive it… and the Tsetse flies which could only be described as vicious and stupid and seemingly indestructible. We decided to lead instead of follow.
We spotted our first Lion within ten minutes of leaving camp. She was lying in some tallish grass doing what Lions do best and after pointing her out to the astonished guests on their separate safari vehicles, we moved on. We spotted our first Topis (Tsesebe looking antelope) and the smelliest hippo pool I had ever had the displeasure of stumbling across. We saw our second Lion close by though and found the guide who had fought the good fight for us the day before when we left the crater late. He told us about a Leopard sighting some way off and though that we would be able to make it and reach camp without getting into trouble. So we set off in that direction. We had not seen a Leopard in a while anyway. Before leaving the river front we did see another few Lions and a herd of Zebra drinking, but left fairly swiftly in search of the big cat.
It was not difficult to find the sighting. We simply followed the dust clouds of the other vehicles until we found a congregation and looked in the same direction as everyone else. The female Leopard had taken an Impala and was in the top of a tree about 100m from the road. Although it was a “binocular” affair, it still ticked the box of a Leopard with a kill in the tree and we were ecstatic to see it! We were also quite interested in the two hundred strong herd of Buffalo across the road and the thirty or so Giraffe in another direction. We reached “bingo” (Time to return to base) before long, started the engine and headed back towards camp. It was quite late and I drove fairly fast, making great time and reaching the river earlier than expected. This meant that we could meander along its edge rather than go straight back to camp. The amount of life around the water was intense! It was obviously the right time to be there. We had planned to get back to the Hippo in nice afternoon light and made it with perfect timing. There was another vehicle there and we noticed that they were looking in the opposite direction. With the help of the binoculars we soon found why: There was a Lioness… in the top branches of a tree! Watching her for a while and thinking at first that she was unable to find her way down, I suddenly realized that the clever old girl was in fact using the Camel Thorn tree as a vantage point! She was walking from side to side on the huge branches, looking out over the plains through the thinning canopy, obviously scouting for prey. Before long she had clearly identified something of interest, picked her route down and with fine agility reached the ground and headed off in the direction she last glared into. What a fantastic sighting on a fantastic day, I thought as we drove the last few minutes to camp.
I braved the cold water shower to rinse the two inch layer of dust off me, made some food and fell asleep early after a long, hard day in Africa!
Day 149:
I could not believe how well I had slept and how easy it was to wake up to bird song with clear blue skies. I felt happy in the bush and excited about the day… but not for long.
I have to bitch a little here! The “hole in the ground toilets” or “French toilets” or “Arab toilets” was still something I was trying to get used to. I managed the daily routines without too much trouble, but always searched for the “western, or sit down” type. I was clearly not the only one around who found squatting new and challenging but what I simply failed to grasp was that in every camp site for the preceding week someone had missed the hole and shat all over the rim, leaving it for someone else to clean up. I tried very hard to ignore the sight and used one of the ladies’ facilities instead.
We left camp with me moaning about the lack of hygiene and manners of our fellow wazungu travellers in a bad mood. This was however quickly rectified with the sighting of some Lions… Honestly! We found a male and female engrossed in each others company and mating every half an hour in absolutely golden morning sunlight, right next to the road and we were one of only three vehicles. It was an astonishing sight! We left them be and ventured along the same river as the day before, pausing every once in a while to take photos of the Hot Air Balloons that were silently gliding across the empty plains at $500 per person. We found a massive Buffalo Bull and the stinking Hippo pool and eventually had to start heading towards our exit gate. We saw some more Buffalo on the other side of the river and while watching them we noticed that a Lioness basking in the morning sun was also watching them. Nothing much came of it, so we left them in peace. Before long we spotted a male Lion next to a Zebra carcass and some more females in the long grass. I started laughing! We calculated that we had seen 23 Lions, 3 Cheetah and one Leopard in three days. Of that, two Lions were stalking, two Cheetahs had just made a kill, the Leopard had a fresh kill, another pride of Lion had a fresh kill and two other Lions were mating. It was honestly the stuff of legends!
By the time we realized that we really had to start heading to our exit gate it was 8am. I thought we had plenty of time and the road in that direction was surprisingly good… for the first hour. With shock and horror I had to admit that the previous day’s “worst road we had ever found” paled in comparison to what we found that day. The road was so rough that I was unable to keep Maggie in a straight line at any speed faster than 10km/h. The corrugation was so deep and so hard that I could not believe that any vehicle in the world would be able to survive it. There was, understandably, an informal track next to the unmaintained disgrace which offered a steady pace, but slower than what we needed to avoid the ever threatening extra day’s fees for late exit. We saw loads of animals on our way and eventually made it to the exit gate with about fifteen minutes to spare. I was dusty, sweaty and dead tired and it was only mid day. I could not believe that Maggie, or us survived that journey!
We had selected the Serengeti Stop over Camp for a night’s accommodation and reached the tranquillity of it within ten minutes of leaving the park. The reasonable $5 per person camping fee was paid after establishing the existence of hot showers and western toilets and as we drove into the camp site we were greeted by Grant and Susan, two South African’s we had met at Masai camp a week before. It was great to see friendly faces. They had been there for two days and really liked the place, which just confirmed our decision.
I inspected Maggie and found a busted Shock Absorber bush… again... but also saw that my exhaust repair was holding. I had spare bushes, so with the help of Lusaka acquired monkey wrench and some WD40 I managed to undo the nut and replace the part. We abused the hot showers until I felt no dust on me any more and went to celebrate our success in the Tanzania parks in the bar with Grant and Susan. The mosquito infested camp site was host to our dinner party until we retreated to the safety of our tent and fell sound asleep to the noises of the African bush. It had been a magical week and we knew we would treasure it as long as we lived.
Day 150:
It was a lazy start to a lazy day and we did not have for to go at all. It was almost 11:00 by the time we had packed up, chatted to our fellow travellers and started making tracks towards port town of Mwanza on the southern shores of Lake Victoria.
On the drive there I immediately remarked that we may as well have been in Malawi. It was typical lake side living complete with millions of bicycles, people selling fish and hordes of small children heading towards, or away from school. The tar surface was also a little worse for wear, but going was steady and we were making good time.
According our maps, camping was possible at the Mwanza Yacht Club, but according to the latest guide books this was only possible intermittedly with no facilities. We had a go anyway. We found the seemingly neglected place at the end of a dusty street after passing though the bizarre town and reluctantly walked in to enquire. It was Sunday, and it seemed obvious that the weekend hosted one or two big parties! The manager agreed that camping was indeed possible, showed us the camp site and quoted the $6 per person fee. It seemed adequate, so we accepted and paid for one night.
I have to be honest and say that the club, the town and the area rapidly grew on me. The area was dotted with massive rocky outcrops, similar to the formations we saw under water in Malawi and the locals had used them wisely as part of their architecture. The more modern architecture was insanely modern and neat and impressive and although the yacht club had obviously seen better days, it had a safe, friendly and welcoming atmosphere of a typical colonial, ex pat club in Africa. We did notice that the last trophy and race to be documented was in 2002, so the place had obviously seen better days. However, as the afternoon progressed, more and more locals came to eat in the restaurant and drown a few beers in the insanely inexpensive pub. We spoilt ourselves with a fizzy soft drink at $0.25 each and sat in their lounge watching a wild life documentary on a 42 inch LCD TV. It was quite surreal!
We managed to do a spring clean on the car as well that afternoon. Catt pretty much unpacked the inside and gave it a good dusting and after washing the dust off everything we could on the inside I took a hose pipe and cloth to the outside. When it was all done we could actually identify the colour of the bodywork and get in without getting caked in dust for the first time in a week.
With the arrival of our fellow Wazungu we deemed the choice a great success. We sat in the camp site watching no less than 13 Yellow Billed Kites feasting on dragon flies while the sun was setting behind the hills. Dinner was equally successful and the party music from the restaurant next door ceased before 23:00, affording us a peaceful nights rest.
Day 151:
Grant and Susan had decided to join us for a couple of travelling days. We were on our way to Rwanda and they had a provisional booking in Uganda to see the Mountain Gorillas. It seemed as if their logical route was through Rwanda, providing a perfect reason to join forces. We did not plan to exert ourselves on log driving days, so picked an old fort and guest house in Biharamulo as our day’s destination.
Before leaving Mwanza we had two missions: The first was to fill up with fuel as we saw it as the last big town we would come across in Tanzania. This was easy enough. The second was to find a new camping light to replace “Old faithful” which finally died in Arusha the week before. Trying to explain to a Tanzanian what exactly a 12V camping light was proved too difficult and it even took ten minutes to explain the concept to an American engineer who happened to arrive at the same fuel station we were filling up at. He was, to be fair, super helpful and directed us to a specialist solar energy shop. We found the perfect lamp there and headed out of town before mid morning.
To avoid a 500km detour, we had to take a ferry across a southern tip in Lake Victoria. Neither us, nor our new companions could find any reliable information about prices or times, but we reached the port in question by 10:00. Grant had already sussed that it would leave at 10:30 and cost less than $10 for the car with two people. The journey across would last about 20 minutes and the ferry looked a sister ship to the one we used to cross the Dar Es Salaam harbour some weeks before. There was also a Chinese building team who had courteously turned the 12km dirt track from old into a massively wide, smooth tar road, which helped a lot with travel time.
We waited for the ticket seller to appear and Grant and I muscled our way in true Africa fashion to the front of the cue to pay our fees. When we got back to our cars we were told by a scruffy looking individual that he had to collect our parking fees. I though Catt was going to slap the poor man! We were parked on a building site, in the dirt, waiting for the ferry. This guy had a very official looking receipt book and honestly didn’t seem like he was ripping us off, but the concept of having to pay for parking while waiting for the ferry was simply too much for Catt to handle. She as much as told the poor soul that she had had enough of his ridiculous country and that she would be glad to leave it. I was, for a change, more relaxed, handed over the $0.25 and followed Grant onto the vessel.
The new wide tar was still in progress on the other side of the lake. Instead of hard black surface, we travelled along the prepared dirt road, awaiting the good stuff. The road was so wide that you could play a game of football along the width of it and so smooth that we could easily keep the speed up to our usual 80km/h. We reached an older tar road, crossed some mountains and climbed some hills and happened upon the town of Geta before long. We found a market and invested in some vegetables at a negligibly small amount of money. Grant decided against filling up with dirty diesel from dirty fuel stations, so we moved on, in search of a suitable shady tree to stop and lunch under.
We found the tree, off the road and in a fairly quiet part of the bush. That part of Tanzania really reminded me of the northern part of South Africa as far as vegetation and intense heat was concerned. However, by the time we opened the back of our vehicles and started putting food on plates, we were almost surrounded by about five or six locals, doing the familiar Africa handshake of standing with their cupped hands and arms outstretched. I tried to explain to the guy who looked like he was the leader that we had travelled long and far to find a peaceful place to have our modest lunch of left-overs and that we would honestly appreciate being left alone. As if he was ever going to understand that! In fact, the only English word he could manage was “Give”, which was met by an appropriate Swahili word I knew: Hapana (No). The merry band of men got bored with us before long and retreated into the trees on the other side of the road. We finished our lunch in relative peace and left the scene with the same abruptness as arriving.
In the little village of Bwanga we left the tar and travelled at relatively high speed on fantastic gravel roads through some hills and reached Biharamulo before too long, avoiding a road which apparently requires an armed escort. The road in question ran along the western shores of Lake Victoria. I did not know anything about the region but was a little perplexed as to the need for armed men to accompany you on any road in Tanzania.
We found Boma Guest House and camping with a little effort. The place looked like an old fort, or perhaps a church from the outside and the single gate entrance had no indication as to what the purpose of the building was. The friendly staff informed us that they had running water and hot showers and the fee for camping was $7.50 per couple. They had no camp site as such, but we could park in the courtyard as we had roof top tents. This place was amazing! It was in fact an old fort which, as far as we could gather from the scattered literature hanging from walls, was occupied by German troops at some point. We saw one room we though could be rented out as accommodation. The rest of the rooms seemed to be inhabited by the staff. In our courtyard we were however left completely alone, which was both novel and pleasant and the facilities included a hot shower, which we obviously had to abuse.
As night fell I enlisted the awesome power of our new camping lamp. Man this thing was bright! It was incredible! It lit most of our courtyard enough to deem the use of headlamps unnecessary. We had a great conversation of great new friends over dinner and beer and wine and eventually fell sound asleep in our private paradise to the sound of… nothing at all.
Seconds before falling asleep I was amused that we had progressed to measuring places of accommodation by not only facilities offered, but also noise levels at bed time. This was a new measure, starting in Arusha at Masai camp.
Day 152:
We had agreed to leave at 9:00. We all woke up to the prayer song of the local mosque before sunrise. The man doing the praying had a pleasant voice, so it wasn’t an unpleasant wake up call. After lazing around a little and abusing the hot shower one more time we packed up and hit the road. It was time to cross another border into another country, acquiring our 6th passport stamps.
I had read a few reports of how easy and friendly the Rwanda border crossing was supposed to be, but to be honest, I am also apprehensive and a little stressed out by crossing borders in Africa. It was not only the unknown in this case, but also the knowledge of what happened in that country in 1994 and how volatile it was after the recent elections. I was also nervous every time I saw someone without uniform slinging an AK47 with two duck taped magazines as in the case of the last “police” road block we saw in Tanzania.
The border crossing itself could not have been simpler! After chatting in broken and limited Swahili to the customs guy in Tanzania we got our Carnet sorted and sauntered to Immigration who took all of one minute to stamp our passports. We were waved through the checkpoints and arrived on the Rwanda side within 10 minutes of arriving at the Tanzania side. There we found immigration, got our passports stamped, saw customs right next door that seemingly effortlessly stamped the carnet and sent us on our way. I wasn’t convinced that we were done with formalities, so asked a few questions regarding further requirements. The customs guy smiled and told me that everything would be checked at the gate.
At this gate we handed over passports, Yellow fever vaccinations, Carnet and COMESA insurance which all got recorded into the man’s big black book. His helper had the AK47 with two magazines, displaying many live rounds of ammunition which made me slightly nervous and he was also very interested in the contents of our Pelican Case and Grant’s cool box. I explained that I was a photographer who came to see the Gorillas while Grant showed off his Vuvuzela (which he got as a present in Arusha after buying a case of local beer) blowing skill which seemed to satisfy him to the point of opening the gate and letting us enter his country. It suddenly became our easiest border crossing to date.
After changing some currency at the official Bureau de Change we headed towards a village called Ngoma and a recommended Mission to camp at which was not on any of our maps or GPS a database. Driving on the right side of the road, therefore the wrong side for us took some getting used to. I realized once again how big that Land Cruiser actually was as I narrowly missed the oncoming trucks on the narrow, but fantastically good tar roads through the mountains. It was obvious that we had left the country of agriculture and returned to a small country of subsistence farming. Every steep mountain side was covered in crops, but small patches of it indicating the lack of industry, but the same devastatingly obvious deforestation.
We found the Centre St Joseph easily. It seemed nice enough and I knew camping was only allowed in their car park. It was just after mid day however, so we decided on a quick bite by the road side shade before pushing on to Kigali, the capitol. The roadside shade however was directly across the road from a primary school, so we instantly became the centre of attention of a horde of small children with whom we could not communicate one word. Catt could speak very broken French, we both could speak even more broken Swahili, but none of us could speak or understand a word of the local language they were speaking in. They were, to be fair, completely harmless and obviously curious. I felt like I was on the wrong side of the fence in the zoo, but they soon tired of us and left us alone.
We continued our journey west and found the recommended accommodation and apparently only camping spot in Kigali by mid afternoon. The place was called “One Love accommodation” and used its proceeds to fund artificial limbs for unfortunate souls who needed them. Once again it became abundantly clear that East Africa did not cater for Roof Top Tents. We could camp in the car park though, which was comfortable enough and it was cheaper than any other alternative. In fact, the only down side was that marathon distance to the toilet, but at least there was one.
I asked about internet as Catt and I had an urgent email to send and was told by the manager that we could use his cell phone modem to get online. After pitching camp I went to the office to ask for it and then got the full explanation: We could in fact use his modem and sim card, but we had to buy some airtime to pay for the data. It seemed cheap enough so I handed over about $1.50. The man would arrange everything. It took an hour for him to return (I guessed that was urgent in Africa) and hand over the data card and modem. He then asked if he could send one quick email to the owner of the lodge before we used the rest of the data. It seemed only fair as we were about to use his hardware, so I agreed. Three hours later I had to walk into his office and insist that it was in fact our turn to use it as he had been suing it for a lengthy amount of time and our business was very urgent. Another hour later he apologetically handed over the modem. Once logged on I noticed that he had used more than half the data we had paid for on his one email to the boss. Oh well, Africa… was about my only thought. We did use his modem and we did manage to send our email, so it all ended well and we crawled into bed before too late.
Actually, it was quite early because we were in a time zone one hour earlier than Tanzania.
Day 153:
I am not convinced what time this happened, but as I did not sleep all night, I might as well write it in this day’s dairy: somehow, miraculously, a squadron of mosquitoes manage to force entry into our tent. It was a windless, hot and humid night and I tried my very best to either ignore the little critters or to hide from them under the covers. Neither strategy worked, so eventually I got up in search of DEET. I returned with some Fever Tree lotion and some Peaceful Sleep. I covered by forehead, neck and knuckles with the latter while spraying the inside of the tent with the former. You may laugh at the knuckles comment, but they were physically sucking the blood form them, so I needed some protection.
I gave up on trying avoiding them after long, so laid there, covered by the sheet to above my nose with my forehead covered in DEET. The plan was to expose only one art of me and hopefully entice the mozzies to sit on that one, poison covered part and succumb from the experience. It seemed to work a treat as I heard mosquito after mosquito fly in and land, only to make a strange noise and not return. There was, to be honest, a great satisfaction to mass murdering the irritating insects. What seemed bizarre was that they kept coming and they seemed to increase in numbers. The tent was properly closed; the netting zipped down so I couldn’t understand that they were still gaining access. It was only when I heard a commotion and complaints from Grant and Susan’s new and shiny ultra-modern tent that I felt a little more at ease. Apparently the mosquitoes also gained access to their tent.
Just as I thought it was all over and that I would at least manage a few hours of rest, the local dog started howling. Seriously, the thing howled at moon at top volume from right next to our tent. I had to laugh! I also had to give up on the idea of sleep and be happy with it. To be honest, I did manage some sleep. I estimated it to be about ten minutes in between the sun coming up and the alarm going off. I was dead tired!
Susan and Grant didn’t feel much better and all of were very keen on getting out of that city fairly quickly. Our new friends waved a fond farewell and headed off to Uganda while Catt and I found a supermarket for some supplies and the office to buy our Gorilla Permits from. The supermarket, above all expectation, sold Rwanda made cheese at very reasonable prices. We bought a kilogram of Gouda! The wine selection included some from California, so we invested in an experimental selection before heading to a bank. The bank told us that the ATM did not accept VISA, but they could advance us currency at a 3% charge. We declined. At the wildlife office the computers were off line, so they could not tell us when the next available Gorilla permit was for. We were so tired and so ill prepared to deal with problems that we simply decided to leave the city.
We headed west towards Lake Kivu. The road felt like we were climbing mountains again and the awesome views of small scale farming on the hill sides offered constant interesting entertainment. Rwanda seemed to be a clean, organised and friendly country, even though it also seemed incredibly densely populated. I needed to pee but could not find a place without hordes of people next to the road. We saw one or two Genocide memorials along the way but felt in no way emotionally strong enough to deal with what was said to be a gruesome experience.
We found the Kibuye Guest House location easily enough. Camping in Rwanda seemed almost impossible and this place, according to our books and maps, did offer that. If only we read the second line in the guidebook stating that government closed it down because the owners failed to upgrade it…. We drove around Kibuye town for a while in search of suitable accommodation and eventually found the Presbyterian Church run Hotel Centre Bethanie. This place was right on the lake, had rooms for $20, a restaurant with really decent prices, hot showers and a double bed. We were ecstatic and signed up for the night.
The hotel gave the feel of early riches and Fjord shores in Norway. Only the massively impressive building was situated on the shores of a volcanic lake, which may have been dangerous to swim in, in a country in Africa. It was deliciously out of place with its French speaking waiters, white towels, comfortable beds, free wifi and raw concrete floors.
The afternoon rolled by pretty quickly and we had a deliciously cheap meal in the nice restaurant before falling onto the bed and reaching slumber land seconds before our heads hit the pillow.
Day 154:
We were yet to determine whether we were in fact in a different time zone to Tanzania or not. So we were unsure if we woke up early, or late. I preferred to think early as we did go to bed very early indeed! After coffee and breakfast, illegally prepared in our room, we abused the wifi in reception for a while before making a move.
Our fresh water tank had run empty the day before and on asking the reception lady if the water from the taps were drinkable, she laughed out loud and said that all water from taps in Rwanda was perfectly safe to drink. I organised a hose pipe and filled the tank. We had phoned the Wildlife office in Kigali and provisionally booked our Gorilla permits. We had to present ourselves and our money at the office that day to confirm our booking and as we got the last two permits for the day in question, we couldn’t really take any risks. So leaving the fantastic setting by the lake, we slogged through the mountains and fields back to Kigali’s madness.
I noticed that we were averaging something in the region of 40km/h in travel speed. This had nothing to do with traffic or the bulk of Magurudumu. It was simply because the roads through the mountains prohibited any faster pace. They were in fantastic condition with hardly a pothole in sight, but bendy and steep with millions of people walking on the sides.
Driving back into the city was stressful as well. Some clever clogs in the past had decided that “motorbike taxis” was an alternative to the already insane driving habits of minibus taxis in Africa. This merry band of madmen rode their small motorbikes around town in a complete lawless and utterly irresponsible way, carrying their human cargo with distinct disregard of the value of human life. God help us if that concept ever takes off in South Africa. It was hard enough to drive on the wrong side of the road, keeping an eye on other road users in normal vehicle as well as minibuses and the occasional full size bus. The “Moto taxis” added a complete new dimension to it and how I managed to navigate my way around without driving over a dozen or so of them I still do not comprehend.
Back at the wildlife office we established that our booking was safe, provided that we paid in full that day. We were told the day before that VISA was welcome to pay for the fee. As Catt presented the card, after making sure that it was accepted and that the machine worked, we were informed that card transactions attracted an additional 5% fee. We paid cash, in US$ as they refused to accept their own countries currency as legal tender. To be fair, there was no way to get hold of their own countries legal tender other than exchanging US$ or paying a 3% fee at a bank, so it did not matter.
Permits in hand we walked back to the super market to buy another kg of cheese. We also needed to re visit the MTN mobile store where we had bought a local sim card the day before. This made me think of my first visit to the USA. I spent two weeks in Florida with the mission of being able to order breakfast without he waiter asking me any question. The first day was a disaster, resulting in at least ten questions. The last day I thought I aced it by ordering: Two friend eggs, sunny side up, medium. Four rashes of bacon, no fat, grilled, crispy, beans, cold, medium fries, one slice of tomato, fried medium, two slices of white toast with butter, not margarine on a white, cold plate, white coffee with full fat milk and sugar…. Please… The smug waiter asked if I wanted white or brown sugar with my coffee. On purchase of the sim card at MTN in Kigali I asked if we needed to activate, or do anything to be able to use the card. The answer was a clear “No”. I asked what the rate per MB was for internet time on the sim and was given a reasonable figure, to my surprise. The information that was however not offered was the fact that you needed to find out what the “message centre” number was before you could send an sms and that the business centre had to activate the sim card in question before you could actually use it to access the internet. I obviously did not ask the right questions. However, once again to my surprise, armed with the right set of questions, the friendly and highly efficient, multitasking staff member in the business section solved all our issues while working on someone else’s computer in about three minutes. I was mildly impressed.
One Love was NOT an option for our night’s accommodation, so we investigated the other places mentioned in our guide books. The first place had tiny, dirty rooms and no parking for $40. The second place had nice rooms at decent rates, but was full. I scanned the map and saw a lodge with camping by a lake some 60km out of town and suggested that we make the effort of travelling there. It was in the direction of the memorials and museums we wanted to visit, so it would not be a wasted journey. We had two hours of sunlight left and I estimated that if we found it to be a mistake, we could make it back to the city before dark, not breaking rule number one!
We arrived at La Palisse hotel on Lake Saki, very close to the border of Burundi an hour and a half later. I was dead tired from driving and honestly just wanted to stop for the day. The hotel complex was vast and on first impressions I knew their room rate would be out of our budget. We enquired about camping, which needed the OK from the manager and were informed that camping for the two of us would cost… Wait for it…. $40 for the night. I tried not to laugh… I tried to reason with the man, telling him that the rate was ridiculous and asking if he was surprised that we were the only guests at his establishment. We walked back to the car with the intention of driving back to Kigali to find better accommodations for the same price. I was not impressed!
After starting Maggie and driving up the drive way we were flagged down by a waiter. He told us that the manager had phoned the owner and it was agreed that we could camp there for the night for $16 for the two of us. We would have access to toilets and a wash room and could park right by the lake on a level piece of concrete. I did not argue any more and was not fazed by the lack of receipt after handing the money over. We spent an absolutely fantastic evening by the lake, cooking our own food, drinking our own wine and having pleasant conversation with highly intelligent people… we were alone and loving it!
If I had to do it over again:
From the time of leaving Serengeti we were on fairly unchartered territory. Guidebooks and GPS maps offered little to no information on places to stay or road conditions, so we had to “make it up as we went along” I feel that we made great decisions and got lucky with almost all places we ended up at… Until we entered Rwanda where things got complicated.
We had very little information about Rwanda and found it to be a country ignorant to tourism. “One Love” is NOT the place to stay in Kigali regardless of what the guidebooks may tell you. There is no decent budget accommodation in the city and if you have to stay there, prepare yourself for $65 a room. The best thing about the city for me was leaving it.
Hotel Centre Bethanie on Lake Kivu was a fantastic find and highly recommended. La Palisse hotel is off the beaten track and not worth the drive there. Camping does not exist in Rwanda, so if you are brave enough to visit the place, prepare yourself for hotel rooms. We did find the answer the next week, so I’ll describe it soon.
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