Cyangugu

Cyangugu is a nice little town split in two areas; one up the hill and the other part at the border. We found Hotel du Lac next to the border, from our hotel room we had a good view on the border bridge. We sat a while to watch life going by and take some photos.



View from our room.



Ladies with their small Sambaza fishes.

After 18.oo the border closes and the streets get rather empty at the border part of town. The other part remains busy with many people walking on the street.

It was sad to see some houses, which could have been nice, were left to rot.



The next day and night we spent at the Peace Hotel. A lovely place with a view over the lake. Luckily we were prepared for the place this doesn't serve alcohol, we had our own little supply.



As the drive back was over the same road, I hope I don't need to explain there were some potholes.

Never mind the potholes

This blog comes with a slight delay, sorry.

We went for the weekend (Friday-Monday) to the south-west of Rwanda, an area we did not visit yet.

We left around ten to be for lunchtime in Butare. There were a lot of people at the roadside because the tour de Rwanda is this weekend. It turned out today etappe was Butare-Kigali, the road we were driving on. Halfway in the well known town Gitarama, we were summoned to another road. We went off the sideroads to come out in the centre at the mean road, just in time for the leader group. People were cheering loudly, the racers were going fast downhill.





The next ten minutes every now and then some racers came past, people cheering for every one of them, even louder for those with a rwandan shirt. The end of the race coincided with the rain starting, it's rainy season after all. People ran off to all sides and we were clear to drive on.



The drive to the entrance of the Nyungwe forest was good, nice road, nice view. However the road became worse every meter, until there was more hole than road. We did see some monkeys at the side of the road. As later became apparent, you don't actually need to go into the forest, the best place to find the monkeys is the side of the road.




There are 6 monkeys in this picture if you look closely.



The tourist office and guest house is at the other side of the forest, so we had no choice but to endure this. When we arrived at the guest house we found out it was fully booked by a group of mostly English people, grump. However we could stay at the teaplantation five minutes up the road, for dinner we had to return, as the teaplantation has just a room. It turned out indeed just a room, no shower, no warm water, broken toilet seat. But you can't complain for 10.000 RWF (12 Euro) and the next hotel an hours drive away. So we went for dinner, which was nice, returned slowly in the dark, driving through the potholes. We opened our bottle of wine and sat outside enjoying the few over the teafields.

We were surprised to see that they knew about Sinterklaas, but I think they weren't good, the next morning the shoes were still empty.



After a good sleep taking the circumstances in consideration we had breakfast at the ORTPN (tourist office) and set off for our walk. We booked the forest walk to the water fall, not the chimp tracking. We started at the edge of the forest, where we left the car guarded by a child. The teafields are stunning, as it is a fully covered low green plant, the hill look like covered in a blanket. The forest walk was lovely, a variety of plants and trees. We saw some big birds and a few monkeys in the distance. The waterfall was nice, but more a landmark than a 'must see'.

We were lucky and it stayed dry all the way to the end of the walk. When we came back to the office we were kindly asked to park the car elsewhere as the prime-minister was on his way. So we paid the guide and hurried off to Cyangugu. It is a mere 20 km drive, but took almost an hour. The man from the ORTPN said they will fix the road next year, I hope he is right. Not only did we have a big rain shower, we also ended up behind a wedding party, which was cool.

Vehicular vocab

Driving in Rwanda leads to some interesting utterances in our car, sometimes urging other drivers / pedestrians onwards, sometimes just insulting them. Some gems lately...

When being cut up on a roundabout - you should have tooted, that was definitely tootable
When a pedestrian walked in front of the moving car - see the big shiny metal thing - it hurts, don't walk in front of it
Crawling up a hill - go on, change gear, I dare you
Idiot
When the car in front suddenly changes lane - ooh, using the magical invisible indicators again are we?
When the car in front is sticking to the middle of the road - pick a lane any lane
when driver on left is more interested in nose contents than road - if you're hungry get a takeaway
When moto in front of car is cruising for business and veering from side to side slooowly - just drive in a forwards motion will you

This obviously has no affect on anyone exterior to our car, but it makes us feel better. Some of the above are translated, and some have been cleaned up for public digestion

The car is now fixed, we went away for the weekend and abused it through potholes, and did something to the exhaust which made the car very noisy, its fixed now, but communication difficulties mean we're still not entirely sure what was wrong, as the guy from the garage told Lon, it was making a big noise, and now its not...thanks!

Balcony and Beer

No, we are not drinking beer on the balcony. They are two unrelated subjects, but I just want to write one blog entry. I also want to put Kabul down, but it doesn't start with a B.

When we came back from holiday we still had a few days relaxing at home. To our surprise we found that the tiles of the balcony lifted themselves. According to our houselord a damp problem. So we spent our days with a man locked on the balcony hammering, how relaxing. Clarisse was good, she only left him in after we woke up, locked him on the balcony and sent him home when she went home. That doesn't change the fact that we had to flee the home on a regular basis for our own sanity. Now the man and his friends relaid the tiles and put a few new ones down in a corner, replacing the ones he broke. As extra service he fixed the squeaky tile in the hall, in a way I liked that tile, gives the house character.



On a different note. Forget the doing business index, the presidential elections or the petrol prices going up; Rwanda is developed: We have a dark beer! And it is nice!

To increase their marketshare from 99.8 to 99.9% Bralirwa introduced a brown beer with the catchy name Turbo King. This 6.5% dark beer comes only in 72cl bottles. I don't know the price, but it has to be closer to the local beers than the 4 Euro for import belgium beers. We might have to try some more, just to be sure.



Before the long wait on the decision where we go we have one week of stress deciding which post we want and writing my motivation. An addendum was promised last Friday, it came only today (Saturday). No extra posts for me to react on, except Kabul. As you might guess, I will not put this down. The bad news is that they need several people in Kabul and I can do three of those jobs, so if nobody wants it, there is a possibility they will send me.
On top of this, somebody had the nerve to put down Lusaka as well, it is so unfair, I bagsied it. I am sure I must be the better candidate though. A shame it is anonymous.
Good news for my collegues, somebody put my position on the list.

Next week I will have a final overview of how many people reacted on every post, and then the wait begins.

The List

The List

This is not an obscure film, but an important moment in our lives as it might determent the place we will live for four years.

Today the list came from The Hague, we have to choose between three and ten postings from the list. I will have to motivate my choices and in March/April we will know more. It could be one of my choices, but they can also decide to send me elsewhere.

The possibilities so far are limited.
Basically Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) or Lusaka (Zambia).
As I have to put three down, we might put Addis Adeba down, but this one is a scale higher than my present one, and therefore unlikely.

It is possible they will like to send me to Juba (South Sudan) but as this is one of the worst posts for Hazel I will have to strongly object to that.

Earlier unofficial information that Mali would be an option was incorrect.
It has to be said there will be at least one addendum next week, so it could change. For now we have to go on the assumption this is it.

We are very pleased to find Lusaka on the list, this will definitely be our favourite.

Now the big task ahead is to write the motivation.

So get your soutern and eastern Africa guidebooks out.

We will keep you informed via this medium.

Uganda

We decided this autumn to go for a break in Uganda.

The first couple of days we spent at lake Bunyonyi. This lake is just across the border, just two hours drive from Kigali. The first day we visited Kabale, just a small town with a main road which is too small for two cars and bicycles on either side. We relaxed with a beer at the lake side. We were the only ones in the hotel/lodge because it is low season (occaisional rains).



Part of the steep road towards the lake. If you enlarge the photo you see somewhere in the middle a sign 'humps'. It is nice of them to tell you that after several humps.

The second day we went for a drive. See if we could find the market at the south side of the lake. It turned out a bit longer than we planned. One wrong turn got us on a muddy track, this kind of mud clung to the tires, which makes it impossible to steer. We nearly got stuck in a mudpool because of lack of traction. We ended up doing a full circle around the lake with the occasional view over the lake. Nice lake with islands dotted in it.



After that we proceeded to Queen Elizabeth national park. We prebooked a new lodge at the edge of the park with discount. It was lovely; the park is basically a vast plain surrounded by mountains/hills. Our lodge was on a hill overlooking the whole park; brilliant!



The next morning we went for a bushwalk in a forest reserve just before the park, in this forest you can also go for chimp tracking, but we opted for just a walk. We didn't see any monkeys, just until the end next to the road. But the forest was nice, though humid. We also wanted to go on a boat trip in the park from one of the lodges. As it was low season this could only be done in the afternoon. We decided not to hang around for a day (which would have been fine) but to do it that afternoon. We didn't realise that we had to pay park fees to go there, which made the 15 dollars each suddenly 120 USD (total), slight advantage is that we had a 10 USD discount for living in the East African Union.

As we were driving towards the lodge we saw some elephants on the road. Even a bigger surprise was the hippo crossing the road right in front of us. So in stead of doing a long safari we now saw the main animals of the park, while driving at 60 km/h in order to make the boat.



The boat trip was nice, completely different experience from driving safaris. More relaxing. We saw many buffaloes, birds, hippos, the odd eagle and even three elephants on the river bank. We were sharing the boat with a group of dutchies, who we would encounter later in Kabale again. What is the saying: You can't avoid death, taxes and the Dutch.



One happy looking hippo.

The following day we followed our path northwards towards Fort Portal. This is a road that goes straight through the park. As we paid our 24 hour fee, we went off a side road twice, the first time we didn't see anything noteworthy the second time we went through a gate with a 'coffee shop / internet cafe'. The coffee was the most expensive and worst coffee I had in a long time. The route took us past some mini craters, some with forest, some with lake, rather beautiful. Onwards towards Fort Portal, sometimes 120 k/h and sometimes hard braking for speed bumps. Our theory is that the amount of bumps is related to how much backhanders you have paid to an official and is some sort of status. Sometimes three houses have 5 bumps, sometimes a whole village has none. Sometimes they are indicated, sometimes none. It keeps you alert.

In Fort Portal we staid in a guest house run by a English man and Dutch lady. Nice couple, looked like they live there a long time already, which also has an effect on the upbringing of their teenage son I think. As we were their while a friend of them returned we could join the small party they gave. They invited some Dutch people, some mixed couples and the other guests from the guesthouse where two english medical students and a danish girl. A nice mix. There were some children who felt the need to give a small show, basically they did a dance to three 'kinderen voor kinderen' song. (children for children is a group of children singing to raise funds for poor children). We had a good laugh. The english girl and boy seemed to have a totally different experience from us, they stay in a place without electricity, sometimes no water and 7 hours away from a big city, without a car. Makes you realise that we do have a lot of luxury.

We decided not to stay another day but to had towards lake Bunyonyi again. The B road we took was fine, until we went of it to see some crater lakes. We ended up doing a circle and took the same road again from Fort Portal. The road went through another national park, this was forest with a.o. a lot of bamboo, had a nice feel to it.



The Kabale area is probably the cabbage area of Uganda, we came across several big piles of cabbage.

We arrived back in Kabale and slept in Kabale, not at the lake this time. The White Horse Inn was a reasonable choice, but yet again africans are not good at the details in service. It took a man an hour to come by, look at the light bulb, disappear for a while and put a new lightbulb in. We did tell him, if you shake the bulb, you can hear it is broken.

Monday we went to explore more unknown territory. The road to Kisoro was being remade, the surface was good, but there were several stops because of working man or one-lane tracks. The approach to Kisoro town was brilliant, some nice valleys with a volcano on the background, the pictures don't do it justice, you have to be there.



The town itself seemed a nice hub for locals, a big market and a lot of different kind of shops. The border crossing was like any border crossing: unclear where you have to go, but we managed. As an extra surprise they added the fact that we had to write in a big book who the owner of the vehicle was, where we came from and where we were going, this on both side of the border. I think Mr. Zomer left Uganda, but Mr. Lonako entered Rwanda, I wonder if they will find out this inconsistency.

As a welcome it started to rain on the Rwanda side, a shame. After a good lunch at the hotel of a colleague of mine in Musanze (Ruhengeri) we took the best road in Rwanda. The road is rather new and every village, no matter the size, seems to have sign. The road remains dangerous because of all the pedestrians using the road, it is not really wide enough for that.

We arrived reasonably early in Gisenyi so we had a drive around. It is a shame nobody does anything with those nice old colonial buildings. It does appear to be the policy to tear some down, it is not clear what will rise on those spots.

Instead of going straight back we took the scenic route, via Kibuye. It is a nice road in terms of views, but the road was rather jiggly. I don't know if that is a proper word, but I will describe. The road was made a while ago in layers, first layer being stones, over which sand is compressed. The sand is now partly gone which leaves a road of rocky surface. You can compare it by driving over cobblestones (kinderkopjes). This is not too bad as roads go, but after over three hours our bodies where quiet pleased to see the tarmac.



Somewhere between Gisenyi en Kibuye.

After lunch at Bethanies (Sambousa and fish brochette) back the bendy road to Gitarama and home.

Clarisse was surprised to see us a day earlier than planned and hurried to finish all sort of things (which didn't need to be done in our opinion).

Congo Bongo

A friend phoned if we felt like going to a Congolese band.

We assumed that this would mean some drums and african guitar, but swinging.

It started 19.30. This turned out to be 19.30 african time. Around 20.45 we were asked to go inside - but it was OK, cold beer, great view and good company. So we paid our 1.000 RWF (Eur 1.20) along with 30 others and entered. A bit weird; there were three small blokes rapping on some taped music. Our hope was on the un-manned drumset.

Then after some noisy sound testing some Michael Jackson music come on and a man started moonwalking etc. He did well, but his face was too serious.




Finally a man with sunglasses announced the band and nearly fall from the stairs, because he couldn't see a thing. Apparently this band from Kisangani in Eastern Congo is world famous in this region.

I must say we had a wonderful evening, they were very impressive. Two singers, a tall and a very short bloke, dancing in time. Funny to see how the same movements give a different impression on tall and small people.
It was a good mixture of music, mostly modern rap-like. Sometimes a congolese tune mixed in. Not the 3 minutes pop songs, but proper length well structured songs. They sang in tune, the sound quality was good, they were great showmen. I would gladly put them on a club podium in Europe.
In short: we had a good time watching the catchy, danceable music. The only thing is that they sing in French, but to be honest, often you can not understand lirics anyway.

Go see them if you get a chance.

A good example of their music on this link.
http://www.myspace.com/pasnas



Nice to see they left like a good rockband all of them in a small minibus.

Bierfest

It is October so time for a bierfest.

On Friday we went for a drive to find the place, we didn't want to be doing that in the dark. We had a nice drive and actually did find it, even though there are no signs whatsoever anywhere.

Closeby we made this photo



I would be a proud beekeeper if I had a hive in a tree like that.

All local beer (and soda's, called Fanta here) is made by Bralirwa a Heineken company.
Under their best beer brand, Mutzig, they organised a bierfest. It reflected the local culture in many ways:

- It was in Jurupark. A very vague useless map, but still everybody can find it.
- There was a parking attendent, but he did his job very badly.
- There was plenty of food, but you had to fight for it.
- A mix of whites and rich (often overdressed) rwandans.
- A good performance of rwandan band (until they started improvising), an average band of whites with a overconfident singer and an average sound system.
- There was even a VIP Dutchy, but hardly anyone noticed or knew.
Typically Hazel knew that the Bralirwa commercial director was married to someone named Opstelten, but I never knew, until I saw a familiar face being introduced as father of, it took me a while to make the connection. Unfortunately for the man there are always people who like to feel important and have to talk to him. I on the otherhand am above that all, even though he was a VVD major in Utrecht while I was an active young socialist; instead we both drunk beer, seperately.

So after sending a man to find the last softdrink, we went, we had seen the highlights and it was getting cold.

In short it was an enjoyable evening, the best you can get in Rwanda.