Across the boarder
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2008
1
61
79
Trip End
Aug 22, 2008
Kigali,
Rwanda
Friday, July 4, 2008
After 7 hours we reached the Ugandan/Rwandan boarder. Thankfully we had been prewarned that you can't take money out of ATM's and that they don't accept travellers cheques in most places (although we don't have any). we did, however , forget that they do not allow plastic bags across the boarder. The bags , thankfully, were not rigorously checked since all our stuff is separated into plastic bags and we would have lost things like our bag of pineapple.. thankfully they only looked at the surface level so we only loosing a couple a Karl emptied his bag and put the bags in his back pocket!!!
The first few hotels we tried in town were full so we ended up going to Kigali Hotel for FRW 8,000 or 8 pounds a night - ensuite but no hot water. We seemed a long way from town but we found out that the minibuses (120Frw) to Nyaryimbo stop just outside the big mosque nearby which makes it an easy landmark to find and the price is much lower than rooms in town.
The first day we tried to get gorilla permits (500 US Dollars) from the tourist office. They had spaces available for the next day, but unless we wanted to get an expensive taxi 2-3hours up to the town it starts from we were not going to get there in time so we decided against it. It seemed this was a good choice when the next day it poured with rain. Trekking up mountains then really did not seem like the best idea!
The rest of the day we spent walking around town trying to find somewhere to eat - as there are few restaurants in town - and none were open the morning of election day.
We then headed up to the genocide memorial museum in kigali - alledgedly 7km away but it didn't seem that far (taxi 3000Frw/ boda boda 700Frw). We were told the museum was horrific and therefore I was expecting the worst. It was, however, really well done. With much writing , pictures and small videos of people who told their story of that time as you went around - all this told of life before, during and after the genocide of 1994. It was not a horrific place to visit, but very informative. There was, however, a room with skulls and clothing including information on their favourite food, hobby, how they were killed and age - it was all very upsetting.
Also upstairs there was an exhibition which gave information on other genocides that have occurred in the world including Cambodia, Namibia, Nazi holocaust, Serbia, Armenia etc and in the book shop t-shirts stated the worry about the current state of Darfur in Sudan.
For more information see http://www.aegistrust.org/
