This is fairly long...

Rwanda is the coolest place I've ever visited. Granted, we had friends living there making stuff a lot easier, so it might be different for less fortunate folks. But Rwanda would still be an eye-popping, heart-rending, dramatically educational experience.

Lessons for the prospective traveller:

1. You don't talk about the 'two groups', but you do talk about the genocide. There is a strong 'never forget' movement, which is why certain genocide sites are actively marketed to local an international tourists. In fact until 2005 (11 years after 800 000 people died in 100 days of insanity), you could visit these sites and see them as they were in 1994 - bodies strewn everywhere. Now it is more orderly, with bones and skulls having been collected and cleaned and placed on racks. But either way this was the most silencing, chilling, mortifying day of my life.


2. Rwanda is about so much more than it's troubled past. Rwanda has everything:

• fantastic weather (it's in the tropics but is temperate due to the altitude - the whole country is over 2.5km up)

• fantastic people (although muzungus are there to be extorted, so don't be polite)

• fantastic scenery - there is no flat land in Rwanda. Truly the land of a thousand hills. In french that's mille colline - which is also the name of the hotel in the movie Hotel Rwanda. They filmed it in SA though, so the real one looks quite different. By the way they hate Don Cheadle and the movie, for all sorts of reasons
  

• fanstastic beer (mutzig is the best bottled lager I've ever drunk - must be the only good legacy the Belgians left)

• fantastic coffee - some of the finest arabica coffee in the world

• fantastic chilli sauces and oil - they call it pili-pili. I haven't tried proper Moz peri-peri; if it's as good as this I can't wait to go
  

• and of course, gorillas!

3. Rwanda is quite expensive.

4. Rwanda is messed up - that history distorts everything. Rwanda now is more or less a full authoritarian state, despite looing like a democracy. Kagame has 7 year terms, and will only be 'done' in 2017. His party is also pretty much the only one allowed to say anything - which is why a Tutsi party (Tutsis are in the minority) can be even more dominant than the ANC. Kagame controls the armed forces too. I suspect he won't leave for stability reasons, so another Museveni on the cards. Official ideology (which is basically that we acknowledge but do not dwell on our past; we are forward looking and determined to never let that happen again) is a critical stabiliser, and while we were there the papers ran loads of stories about how 'genocide ideology' was still rife in schools.

5. Rwanda is Africa's most densely populated country, and is dirt poor - I've never travelled properly in an LDC, especially not rural areas. About 80% of Rwanda's population subsist on tiny hillside plots, and work harder than you can imagine. Rwandans carry everything up and down hills and mountains, sometimes on bicycles if they are lucky. The kids carry water, building materials, farm produce, etc, enormous distances.


6. You won't be able to stop yourself thinking terrible things, and biting your toungue in what would otherwise be normal conversations. Rwanda is full of adult orphans. You never know whether or not the person you are getting to know (like our driver Gaston, who fell in love with Romy (of course)) lost their entire family, their parents, whatever, in the genocide. You also don't know how they feel about the new Rwanda, because plenty are not happy. Also, and this is really kak, when I saw a bunch of young guys walking down a rural road carrying pangas, picks, axes, etc, I honestly could not stop myself imagining them in 1994, using those tools for anything but farming. It's completely irrational, but still, you can't help yourself. And thankfully I wasn't the only one in our group to skrik like that.



7. Don't fly SAA. Holy fuck don't ever use SAA. That's a whole story on its own.

So where'd we go; what'd we do?

Landed Kigali a day later than planned, after a long afternoon in Nairobi (thanks SAfuckingA). Beer, pizza

(remarkably good in Rwanda), bed. Up early - thanks to housekeeper Mr Clever (pronounced Karaver - the Rwandese have a weird Asian issues with their L's) coming into the lounge (I was sleeping on the couch) at 5.30 to start cleaning. Crazy guy. Fetish for shoes; loves female muzungu underwear (it's all he washed out of all our stuff the whole week). It's not cool being rude about a guy you barely know who can't speak engrish, but Mr Clever was a freaky weird little guy.

Lyal negotiates badly with our driver Gaston - we're in for 900 USD for 5 days in the car. Jeez. Off to Ruhengeri in the north to find our guesthouse. On the way see amazing lakes, hills, valleys, VOLCANOES, jam-packed towns, and farms farms farms. More potatos than you can shake an Irishman at. Every meal in Rwanda comes with pommes frites, because they produce so many bladdy potatos.

Find guesthouse, chill. Get drunk on Mutzig, eat goat brochettes (kebabs), chips, and a tomato. Bed.

Up early next day to go find us some gorillas. Felix and Olivier are our cool guides - we get the Amahoro (Peace) family of 17 gorillas, far away in the jungle somewhere. The ranger people assess the fitness of all the groups that arrive on the day - younger people walk further.

Hike up through farms past mud houses, over the wall into the park, and through some seriously dense bush, sticky mud, and poesnaai stinging nettles. None of us was really dressed properly - Felix was sure to tell us we 'suffer in silence'. Walk forever! Over hills and hills. In thick mist (we are very high up by now, in the foothills of a moerse big volcano). Finally get close to the trackers (who have been out since 5am); realise we've been accompanied by a couple soldiers (for safety). Little aside: this whole region was used by Kagame's RPF during the civil war (which began in 1990) to hide out, regroup, whatever. Lyal's met Generals who lived in these mountains for 3 years. Hectic! These days the RPF are not the threat - there are still Hutu militias, called Interahamwe, active in Rwanda's remote parts.

Dump most personal belongings, only cameras and wallets allowed. Start pushing through bush, up a bit, round a corner, and meet a 200kg silverback staring at us from about 5m away. The rule is never to get closer than 7m, but this is Africa (TIA). Totally insance being 5m from a 17-strong family of mountain GORILLAS, with two silverback males, one 8 month old baby, and three 4 year old kids. They were jus' chillin' when we arrived, lazing around, sleeping, youngsters playing. A couple mothers got agitated when babies began to stray - the guides and trackers keep everything under control by making chesty growling noises, which the gorillas seem to respond positively to. I swear a 200kg silverback is the most dominant thing I've ever seen. He is control, klaar. And when he looks you in the eye, you shit yourself. He doesn't need loud noises or wild gestures - everyone around him, humans included, automatically defer, no question.

Most amazing experience of my life to date.

The rest of this story is shorter.... I'm running out of time.

From there we went back to Kigali to drop off Leila, who was coming back to SA for a bit (she lives there too - we stayed in her house). Ate more brochettes and chips for dinner at the sports club (Lyal's second home in Rwanda) with its clay tennis courts. More Mutzig - I tell you that beer is good.

Up early again to go to Kibuye, a lake-side town in the west on Lake Kivu. Just across the other side of Lake Kivu, in the eastern DRC, rebel fighting continues. Kivu province in the DRC is furthest from Kinshasa, and the most fucked up. Anyway. Lake Kivu and the road to it are both gorgeous. Stopped at a really horrifying genocide site on the way.

See the deal in Rwanda is that there has always been violence and massacres, before and since independence from Belgium in 1962. Each time these things flared up people could seek refuge in churches, just like medieval Europe. But in 1994 many churches were complicit. At this site the story goes that people holed up inside the church, unaware that they would not be safe. Fortunately the church building was well fortified, making it difficult for the Interahamwe to get in. It just so happened that the road we were driving on was beng built in 1994 - there was loads of Caterpillar construction equipment nearby. So the pastor - yes the pastor - ordered his own church to be bulldozed. The site is now just foundations and some graves. Fckn hectic. Of course all genocide stories are these days loosely based on what actually happened, so who can tell whether the pastor issued the order. But the building definitely was bulldozed, and there definitely were a lot of people inside it.

Anyway get to Kibuye with big plans to take a boat out on the lake. We got drunk instead. Lake Kivu is beyooootiful. It's a volcanic lake full of methane gas, but it doesn't stink. It does fart from time to time, apparently, and people die. As if Rwanda didn't have enough problems. TIA motherfucker!

From Kibuye south on a lake-side road that broke everyone's pelvises. Yusus, like 5 hours to go about 80km. We're heading for tea country and Nyungwe Forest. The plantations are also gorgeous - breathtaking vistas. We strolled around in them for a while before heading back to our guesthouse. Nyungwe provides a stunning backdrop - looks like a forest out of Lord of the Rings. That night we watched Liverpool lose to Chelsea in the European Champions League. We watched in a tiny village in some guy's house. He charges cover. He has the only satellite connection in miles and miles. He serves Mutzig. His house is packed. What a rad night, except we lost. I was bleak.

Next day off into Nyungwe - we were going to try and see some chimps, but the rangers can't guarantee a sighting, and 50 USD at that stage was quite a lot. So we just drove through, on the way to Butare and then back to Kigali.

So 4 days of awesome Rwandan countryside...!

The rest of the time we spent in Kigali and surrounds, doing Kigali stuff and the main genocide sites. There are two south of the city - two churches. At the smaller one about 5000 people died (not all in the church obviously); the larger one about 10000. Like I said there are few words to describe this, so I won't. The guide at the smaller site lost 20 family members - she is visibly depressed, quiet, etc. It's heartbreaking.

To end on a lighter note - Kigali nightlife COOKS. We ate at Republika, where the Kigali rich and famous hang out. We met Ezra, who is on the board for SAA Express. We told him SAA proper sucks ass. He laughed and bought us a jug of banana wine. Which is potent. We got fucked. Onto the legendary Cadillac - ya ok the cool kids don't go there anymore, but it's still the biggest and baddest nightclub. Reggaeton shit all night, but fuck man no holds barred. Every guy wants a muzungu wife, and every chick wants a muzungu man. It's HECTIC. Lyal, who is somewhat more portly than Bobby or I, was definitely the favourite - had three mosquitoes buzzing around all night. They didn't believe him when he said Romy is is wife (she isn't), they wanted to 'take him to the carpark' and I swear to god I saw it myself - one of them unbuttoned her pants on the dancefloor. What a lag.

Bobby said he was bored, but I'm not sure I believe him.

Last day was spent chillin' at the club. What a rad holiday...


Sorry this was so long. My Picasa Web albums is blocked at WITS, but you can check more photos on my Facepoes page (if you're interested and made it this far): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110735&l=967ea&id=771395373
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111156&l=4e863&id=771395373

If you're FB friends with Romy she has two albums up as well...

The Doctor (who may have malaria)