Gisenyi, Rwanda
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2008
1
9
19
Trip End
Dec 22, 2008
Gisenyi,
Rwanda
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
October 25/26-On a Saturday morning, Ruhengeri is very quiet. The streets are empty. We had to wait until 12:00 to get a bus the 1.5 hours up to Gisenyi. We arrived in Gisenyi, and found a room in town. There are many hotels along the beach, but they are expensive and not worth the splurge. Our hotel is owned by a man named David from Kigali, whose entire family runs the hotel for him. We got to talk to David a bit, he spoke English well. He was in the Rwandan military for many years, and served as a guard at the state house, the president's home. David is a great storyteller, and we spent the evening talking with him.
The next day, we walked toward the beach. We were not sure what to expect from a Rwandan beach resort. We found an expensive hotel with a pool and loitered beside it most the morning. We ventured down the road and found the Bikini Tam-Tam beach club, a rundown place loaded with locals enjoying food and drink on a Sunday afternoon. Returned to our hotel and talked with David and his wife, Claudette in the evening.
Returned to Kigali the next morning and killed a day there before our flight to Zanzibar.
