Killing Time in Kigali…

This unassuming little office controls all Gorilla Trekking in Rwanda...

The centre of Kigali has this massive roundabout, tended to by an army of gardeners...

After a continental breakfast (bloody French influence again…!) I set about planning all the things I had to get done today… I managed to find an honest taxi driver, who ran me around town sorting out a variety of stuff that I needed to do…

First it was off to the Forestry Services to pay a wallet-numbing $500.00 for the permit to enter the Virunga National Park, and then, to my further consternation, discovered that this did not include any transport to get to the park and back to Kigali…!!! After weighing up a few options, which included losing another day and using public transport to get closer to the mountains, and then arranging more transport to get me to the Volcanoes National Park, I was forced to agree to pay a further $200.00 to get out to the Virungas… Emmanuel would drive me there in a 4 X 4, which was the only type of vehicles allowed up to the point where the trekking began…

We were not amused….

The best (and most expensive!) ticket in town...

Speedily vacated in exchange for cheaper digs...

The Dream Inn Motel... Safe parking and good value for money...

I needed to save some money fast, and Emmanuel came to the rescue and suggested a cheaper hotel close by… I checked out of the Gorillas Hotel, piled all my gear into the trunk of the taxi, kitted up, and followed him to the Dream Inn Motel, about five minutes drive away… The staff were very friendly and eager to please, and a large metal door guarded the entrance to the parking area… It was a bit of a dive, but then I’ve always liked swimming… And besides, it was half the price of the Gorillas Hotel… Worth diving for…!!

Rwanda is by far the most expensive country I have visited thus far… My taxi driver told me that after the genocide of 1994, the country had to be rebuilt, and one way of doing this, was for the government to increase taxes and import duties on almost everything… Being a landlocked country, Rwanda is very dependent on imports, which have to be trucked from Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania or Mombasa in Kenya… Obviously these transport costs also add to the high price of goods in Rwanda…

Emmanuel my taxi driver was horrified when I explained that I intended to visit the gorillas in my Strops, as I have no place in my bags for a pair of boots…

“We must go to the market to buy you some “proper” shoes,” he said…

“What’s wrong with these? I have used them in the bush for years…!”

“Your bush and Rwandan bush is different!” he advised, “…and it is the rainy season1 Too much mud…!”

The market was a crowded area behind high walls, and we went from stall to stall looking for suitable footwear for me… Naturally, all the vendors thought they saw a “good thing coming”, and prices rocketed… I was not prepared to pay $40.00 for a pair of cheap suede ankle length boots, and when the price was lowered to $25.00, and then $10.00, I got a little hot under the collar, and asked the guy why he had quoted such a high price to me in the first place… He just shrugged his shoulders and looked away… By the time he looked back, all he saw was the back of me heading for the exit…  I was tired of the constant attempts to rip me off, and told Emmanuel that my strops would have to suffice…

If you have a hankering for foodstuff that is WAY past it's sell by date, then this is the place to shop...

Emmanuel dropped me off at a little supermarket close to the hotel, where I bought a few packest of biscuits and three bottle of water to take with me in the morning… I also bought a tin of coffee and a small packet of sugar, as I had finished off the stock I had carried with me from South Africa… Not bad for a coffee addict, huh…!!

Back at the hotel, I ordered a “big” plate of Spaghetti, and that’s exactly what I got!! It was overflowing the plate it had been put on, and for the first few minutes, I was scooping spaghetti off the table cloth… But it tasted great and I staggered up the four flights of stairs to my room, and flopped into bed…

I was being collected at 4.00am, for the two hour drive out to the Volcanoes National Park, so shut-eye was a priority… I discovered that the road outside the hotel is one of the main entrances into town, and the constant traffic noise kept me from falling asleep until after 11.00pm…

Not exactly what I had been hoping for…