We interrupt this service…

Anyone who has been looking at this blog regularly will have noticed that over the last couple of weeks the number of posts has slowed dramatically. That’s because we’re now working on a project in Butare, rather than just bumming around on holiday, and so free time has been pretty limited.

The project we’re helping with is Inzozi Nziza (“Sweet Dreams”), Rwanda’s first ever local ice cream shop. Officially we’re working for a non-profit venture called Blue Marble Dreams, which is the brainchild of the people behind Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn, NY. The mission, put simply, is to “explore the potential of ice cream to inspire joy and spur economic growth”. Which is a pretty nice mission, we reckon. In the case of Butare, it means providing a collective of local women with English and computing lessons, then opening a business that will provide a sustainable, lasting benefit to the women who work there, and the community as a whole.

The shop is due to open at the start of June, so this is a really busy time for the project manager, Nikki. When we arrived in Butare a few weeks ago she was juggling a million responsibilities, including teaching English lessons to around sixty women, organising the shop fitout, hiring staff, preparing a marketing strategy and supervising construction of plumbing, drainage, and important things like that. So she’s been rushed off her feet, and we have a couple of months to spare in which we’d like to do something to help… so we go together like mint and chocolate chip.

Right now we’re teaching English…

I'm either conjugating verbs or writing out the line-up of Liverpool's 1986 Double winning team... can't remember which

Either way, it's going down a treat

The students sit, enthralled by another English lesson / texting their friends* (*delete as appropriate)

We’re also taking on some of the marketing, which begins with a brand, spanking new blog. If you can, please take a look around, post some comments and generally help us to build up a pre-opening buzz. Over the next few days I’ll provide links to Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, so keep an eye out. We’ll still be posting bits and pieces on here, but it’ll be a case of when we get the chance, rather than all the time.

Sweet dreams, everyone… x

Things I’ve seen that I want never to forget 4

There was so much that was incredible and unforgettable about Nyungwe Forest National Park that I could write about it forever. To save us all some time, I’m going to keep this mainly to pictures, which I think tell most of the story anyway.

We kicked off with the Waterfall Trail, which is around 11km, departing from Gisakura. From here you walk through the edges of the tea estate to the beginning of the trail itself. Even on this introductory half hour or so, the views were spectacular, looking north to Lake Kivu, with glimpses of Idjwi Island (part of the Democratic Republic of Congo) behind.

Idjwi (the landmass just visible in the mist) is apparently the second largest inland island in Africa, and the tenth largest in the world. So there. Don't say this blog isn't educational

Me with our guide, Robert

We’re usually a bit reticent about hiring drivers or guides because we prefer to do things at our own pace and stop to look at weird things along the way. But in Nyungwe you have to have a guide with you, and we struck gold with Robert. Not only does he know Latin names, common names and folklore surrounding every plant, animal and bird in the forest, but he also has an informed opinion on the merits of everyone on the fringes of the England squad. He’s a great guy to have along on a walk.

The rainforest lived up to all possible expectations.

The forest makes you realise that the word 'green' covers many, many colours...

...and here, trees aren't just things that grow - they're places for everything else to grow, from creepers to funghi, mosses to vines

We made exceptionally slow progress; there was always something wondrous to stop and gawp at

Predictably enough, the Waterfall Trail ends at a waterfall. The night before our walk, it had rained hard all night. As a result, the noise was thunderous and the air seriously wet as we approached the falls.

In fact, we really were blessed (if you like loud noise and getting soaked) – Robert told us it was biggest he’d ever seen the waterfall. And yes, he’d seen the waterfall a lot.

The obvious question to ask about the photo above is what we’re pointing at. Well, the conversation went pretty much like this:

Robert: (indicating the point right by us where the water from above crashes into the pool below) What do you think would happen if you fell in there…?
Simon: You’d get very clean.
Robert: No, you’d die.

There was me thinking it was a trick question.

And these were the photos that I wasn’t going to post, because I figured that it wouldn’t be a good idea to let Jess’s mum see that I stood by while her daughter climbed a very wet rock next to a potentially lethal waterfall:

On the way back, we achieved our secondary goal of seeing monkeys without having paid for any expensive primate tracking. We saw Dent’s mona and red-cheeked mangabeys. However, the downside of not paying for the expensive primate tracking is that the primates aren’t habituated, so you don’t get close enough to get decent photos. Mainly you see branches bobbing up and down like crazy as the monkeys run away from you, with the odd glimpse through the leaves of something looking at you very suspiciously. But on the upside, these are wild, wild monkeys and you still get to hear their amazing noises (especially the mangabeys, which tweet loudly like birds).

The next day we took the pink trail, which is shorter than the Waterfall Trail but a bit more up and down, so probably of a similar (or harder) difficulty (NB none of these are difficult, this is just relatively speaking.)

The pink trail offers breathtaking views across the forest

It's also called the Umoyove, or mahogany, trail... and this is why

Halfway through, we stumbled upon some mountain monkeys (also known as L’Hoest’s monkeys), which like to walk around the ground and were using our trail when we encountered them. They quickly scarpered to the other side of the river and watched us from there. Again, we didn’t get any great photos, but the next day we saw one by the road, and it obligingly posed for a portrait.

Mountain monkeys have a red back, a white beard and, bizarrely enough, red testicles (not pictured)

In the end, part of me wished that I could forget Nyungwe. It would be the perfect excuse to go back…

Nyungwe Forest National Park

Before we visited Nyungwe, it was a bit difficult to find information about it, and the place has been going through some changes since the Bradt travel guide was published, so this is just a few bits and pieces that might be helpful to visitors.

Assuming I’ve got the hang of posting pdfs to a blog, you can see the current park fees by clickinghere. They’re pretty self-explanatory, except possibly for one thing. We weren’t sure whether paying for something expensive (e.g. primate tracking) for several days would also grant you to access to other, cheaper things (e.g. nature walks) during the same period. It doesn’t, so if you want to do two days of chimp tracking and one day of nature walks then that’s what you pay for, so it works out quite expensive if you stay for several days but want to do different things each day. We opted for three days of nature walking, figuring that we were bound to see some cute and fluffy monkeys along the way. We were right, though the monkeys weren’t habituated, which means they will run away when they see/hear you coming – but you still get to see them, and we felt it was all a bit more authentic, somehow.

We visited Nyungwe in early March, which meant we were there just before the improvements came online (typically). The new visitor centre at Uwinka, built with USAid money, looks pretty impressive:

The new visitor centre should be open by the time you read this

We also saw work in progress on the new walkway that will give you views of the canopy:

Work in progress on the new canopy walk

It should make for quite a gentle nature walk, without the gradients and soft ground that make other trails at Nyungwe harder work than they should be. Didn’t look quite so gentle or pleasant to work on, though:

And when it’s finished, it should look like this:

Artist's impression of completed canopy walk (from Uwinka tourist info)

All this – the new visitor centre, the canopy walk and some other minor changes – were scheduled for completion by the end of March. It might have slipped a little bit since then, but most things seemed fairly close, so it shouldn’t be too much later.

Gisakura Guesthouse

After deciding that the Gisakura Tea Estate wasn’t for us, our next stop was the better-known Gisakura Guesthouse (sometimes called the ORTPN Guesthouse, because it’s next to the ORTPN office and used to be part of it).

The beautiful setting of the Gisakura Guesthouse

A fairly spacious, very clean double room cost 25,000RwF (£28), with two toilets and showers shared between three rooms. Best of all, the showers actually had hot water, whereas everywhere else we’ve stayed since Kampala a month ago promised it had hot water, but actually didn’t.

If you’re staying in Nyungwe on a budget, there aren’t many options. The Tea Estate is quite inconvenient; to stay at Uwinka camp site in the heart of the forest you need your own food (which basically means you probably need your own car too as there aren’t many shops around). The Guesthouse is comfortable, not too pricey, and it’s convenient: you can buy your park permit from the adjacent ORTPN office, and the excellent waterfall trail departs from here. The habituated colobus monkeys are nearby, too.

Most people – unlike us – who arrive at the Guesthouse seem to have a driver with them. This is useful, because there’s only one member staff who speaks much in the way of French or English, and she is often away in Kigali. Luckily we didn’t anything too complicated. Meals have to be booked in advance, and are ridiculously hearty. Breakfast (included with the room) consists of a giant vat of porridge, an omelette, three or four slices of toast with jam, peanut butter and Nutella, and some fruit. Trying tracking chimps after that little lot. The “light” lunch option is a giant vat of soup and three toasted cheese sandwiches – each – while dinner (and the “not-so-light” lunch) is an epic sequence of stewed beef or fish, rice, peas, chips and fruit. For this reason, the staff think you slightly strange if you eat three meals a day; we did anyway, because (a) we were going on long(ish) walks, (b) our biorhythms are accustomed to eating three times and, erm, (c) we’re on holiday.

The Guesthouse is set in some lovely gardens, and there is even a thatched area at the end where there is a campfire every night. We were very happy with an easy schedule of walk in the morning, sleep or relax in the garden in the afternoon, stuff our faces, fall asleep.

Thatched camp fire area visible in the foreground - good for drying off clothes if you're unlucky on your walk!

There’s even some nature that comes to see you while you’re blogging.

Vervet monkey

Sunbird

Getting to Nyungwe, and the Gisakura Tea Estate

This post is just about how we got to Nyungwe National Park from Huye/Butare, and staying at the Gisakura Tea Estate. It’s probably not that interesting for anyone reading from casual interest; however, we were a bit worried about the journey worked and couldn’t find all that much information, so I thought a few details might ease the minds of anyone attempting the same journey.

We’d been staying in Butare, and the plan was to catch the Sotra bus from here to Nyungwe. We weren’t entirely sure this was possible; it was, but it’s worth knowing a few facts beforehand.

Firstly, we nearly didn’t secure a seat because we just turned up on the day. Of all the bus companies that operate from Butare, Sotra is the only one that runs to Nyungwe. The buses originate in Kigali so they can be full by the time they get to Butare. We were originally told that there was no space on any of the buses that day. Bizarrely, after we’d been around all the other bus companies and returned to Sotra to book tickets for the next day, we were told that it was now possible. Bear in mind that they don’t over-fill their buses here (this isn’t Uganda) so it’s very possible that all tickets can disappear in advance.

The bus from the centre of Butare headed, worryingly, back in the direction of Kigali. Luckily, it turned out that this was just to drop us at the petrol station at the edge of town, where we could pick up a bus on the main Kigali-Cyangugu route. So far, so good.

The drive to Gisakura, on the western edge of Nyungwe, is truly, truly beautiful, but at the back of our minds there was the worry that no-one had seemed to totally understand that we wanted to get off at the park, and not continue right through to Cyangugu. But there was no need to have worried – I think they understand that white people typically want to see the park, and not some slightly manky town on the DRC border. So they stopped first at Uwinka, which is the main campsite and point of arrival for visitors here, expecting us to get off. We shouted Gisakura and the bus rumbled on (or rather slid on… they call it a rainforest for good reason).

Because it is the cheapest place to stay in the area, we wanted to stay at Gisakura Tea Estate Guesthouse. Note: This is not the same as Gisakura Guesthouse, which is where we stayed for the next few days and we’ll come back to in a later post. The Tea Estate is seriously no frills, and is marked by a sign saying ‘Gisakura Usine a The’ on the left-hand side of the road, about five to ten minutes’ drive from the exit to the park. Our bus driver thought it pretty bizarre that we wanted to stay here, but stopped happily enough.

From the road it’s about a 15-minute walk (with bags, anyway) to the guesthouse, which is tucked away just past the roundabout. I don’t have any pictures of the guesthouse itself, but here’s the road leading up to it:

The Tea Estate Guesthouse is just past the roof you can see in the distance

The Tea Estate Guesthouse is basic. It cost 10,000RwF (£11) a night for a double room, with attached toilet/shower. Basically, if you have a car and you’re really on a budget (a strange combination, but possible, I suppose), then it’s probably fine. But if, like us, you’re reliant on public transport, then it’s pretty inconvenient, because it’s so hard to get anything to eat. According to our guidebook it’s possible to get food from the tea estate canteen, but it was (very) closed up when we got there. There aren’t any shops in the vicinity – they’re about 25 minutes’ walk away – and the only other place to get food is the Gisakura Guesthouse, which I suspect wouldn’t feed you if you weren’t staying there. So the rooms are cheap (a little bit cockroachy, but at this price that kinda goes with the turf), but you’re totally stranded, and if you’re walking/hitching back here after 6.30pm, you’ll need to do so in the pitch, pitch dark.

Great views of the tea, though.

Things I’ve seen that I hope never to forget 3

Sometimes things affect you when it hasn’t occurred to you that they might, and Nyungwe National Park was, for me, one of those things. For the record, it’s the largest mountainous rainforest in Africa, and I suppose what surprised me was this: I think, in my mind, I’d decided that I would probably never in my life see a rainforest. I mean, I’m not the kind of person to seek out a terrain that I generally associate with leeches, giant spiders and hacking through undergrowth with a machete. So to sit on a bus watching this incredible, just-how-you-imagine-it landscape roll by, knowing all the while that you’re going to have days to explore, made my eyes go kinda watery.

Our first glimpse of Nyungwe National Park

Almost as impressive, when we reached the other side of Nyungwe, was Gisakura Tea Estate:

That, my friends, is a lot of tea

For someone who drinks so much tea, it suddenly seemed strange that I’d never seen the stuff grow. It’s very green.

A few days later I ended up watching England/Egypt in the staff common room of the tea factory. That was a strange experience, although I suspect it was at least as strange for the workers as it was for me. Not my fault there is no other satellite telly in the vicinity of the rainforest…

An orphan’s tale

While travelling in Rwanda we met a boy called Cloudy, and this is his story. I don’t want it to come across as a begging letter, and nor do I want to dissuade anyone from helping if they’re inspired to do so. This is just a story – one of many – from a part of the world that has had more than its share of pain, and it may be instructive for those of us who have been lucky enough to escape such misfortune.

Cloudy was born in 1991. Like many Rwandan Tutsis, he wasn’t born in Rwanda. His parents fled from persecution in 1959 and so Cloudy was born in Kasese, Uganda. His father was a soldier who joined the unsuccessful RPF invasion of Rwanda in 1990. In 1994, Cloudy’s mother and father returned to save their compatriots from the genocide, leaving Cloudy with neighbours in Uganda.

Cloudy later learned that both of his parents were killed during the massacres. Soon he was living on the streets in southwest Uganda, attending school when he could, begging or working to support himself. But Cloudy was lucky; in his teens he received funds from American sponsor, which allowed him to gain a diploma in computer studies.

Cloudy returned to Rwanda in 2007 and enrolled at the National University of Rwanda, Kigali, to study computing and telecommunications. Two years into his four-year course, his sponsor died; Cloudy had to quit his education, leaving him with few prospects. He is unemployed, though off the streets for now. His school fees, the amount he now needs to complete his studies, are just 500,000RwF a year (£550).

What struck us about Cloudy wasn’t just the misfortune of his story. His eyes are wet, even now, when talks about his loss; his voice still wavers. Rwanda is a country where post-traumatic counselling is scarce, and what resources there are must be allocated to the most serious cases, the very many children and adults who witnessed unthinkable atrocities – rape, torture, mass killings – during the genocide. For young people like Cloudy, life is just about getting by.

In a video testimony at the Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali, one woman talks about losing her family. She says, ‘When I was with them, I was safe from everything. I was even safe from the thunder.’ For orphans such as Cloudy, the pain isn’t just from the death of loved ones; it’s from the fact that the very people who protect you as a child and shelter you from the evils of the world are gone forever. From an early age you know just how cruel the world can be, and you know that you’re on your own.

There are no guarantees in this part of the world. There is no guarantee that, even as a graduate, Cloudy would find work. There is no guarantee that, facing his demons alone, he will have the mental or emotional strength to fulfil his potential. But if anyone wants to contribute some or all of the fees Cloudy needs, I have his contact details, and you have mine.

Where to stay and eat in Butare

We wanted somewhere really quiet and really cheap in Butare – and we landed on our feet at Motel Ineza.

The gardens at Motel Ineza are a relaxing place to sit and chill - most of the time

Our double room was small but clean, with an en suite toilet. There was also a shower, but it really obviously wasn’t connected to any kind of water supply, so it doesn’t really count, and for 9,000RwF (£10) a night we felt we were getting a good deal. The staff speak some French and a bit less English, but they try their absolute best and are definitely an asset. Best of all is the garden, with indoor and outdoor seating. It’s a lovely place to relax, although when we there the nearby pentecostal church was belting out music at nightclub-style sound levels almost every day. This may not always be the case, but these were definitely the most annoying Christians we’ve encountered so far, and in this part of Africa, that’s saying something.

We ate most nights at the restaurant of Hotel Ibis, which has lots of outdoor seating from which you can watch the world go by. At lunchtime the snack menu is really cheap, with burgers, brochettes etc coming in at 1,500-4,500RwF. In the evening it’s more expensive, but the quality is excellent and there’s loads of activity with a good mix of people (university towns have their benefits). The supermarket opposite the Ibis has lots of snacks such as sambusas (the little meat samosas that are everywhere here), meat rolls, croissants etc, and the Cheers cafe inside is good for breakfast or lunch. It even has a small library, though most of the books are in German.

For cheap eats we tried Amafuya Huye next to the supermarket (I think that’s the name, anyway – it’s the one with the little balcony). A few people have asked about food in this part of the world, and I’ll do a proper post on that subject at some point, but as I have some pics from Amafuya, and the food was pretty typical Rwandese, here’s a quick primer.

Lunchtime in Rwanda means the buffet:

According to my guidebook, there was a time when Rwandan companies had a crackdown on the length of their workers’ lunch breaks, and this caused a rise in popularity in the help-yourself, no-waiting buffet. That may or may not be true, but buffets are definitely the way to go for quick and cheap meals here. (And yes, mine looks like slop, but you don’t actually have to load as much on your plate as I do.) From the bottom, we have stewed beef; boiled matoke (plantain) with assorted veg; rice; and beans. If memory serves, there were also some runner beans and chips on offer, as well as the tiny, sorry remnant of some unfortunate fish (bear in mind that Butare must have decent claim to be as far away from the sea as anywhere in Africa). The whole lot costs 1,500RwF (£1.65) if you stick to the veg, or 2,000 with the meat or fish – and that is a bargain in anyone’s book.

We were blown away by the Amafuya buffet, and so we went back for the a la carte dinner. And there is nothing more Rwandan than the brochette (beef or goat), which is pretty much inescapable in this country. They really like their grilled meat. And their chips.

Goat brochette

I can’t remember what we paid for this, but it was cheap enough to be an insult to the poor goat who not only gave its life for our meal, but suffered the ignominy of having its flesh cooked to a dessicated, chewy, tasteless crisp. Sorry fella.

The next day, in a rush to eat before heading to Nyungwe, we returned to the buffet. I think it was the same buffet, with the same food, possibly reheated or possibly just re-served as it was. So all in all we had a one out of three hit-rate at Amafuya Huye… but the one hit was pretty damn fine.

Butare and the National Museum

After a few days in the city we were ready to chill out for a few days. I know that’s kind of all we’ve been doing, but it seemed a bit hectic and we hadn’t found anywhere we wanted to stay for a bit longer… and there were monkeys to see in the Nyungwe National Park. Who can resist going to see monkeys? (Not us, evidently.)

We were in no rush, though, and the route from Kigali to Nyungwe heads due south for three hours to Butare (also known as Huye), then two hours west, and so we thought we’d overnight en route. Overnight eventually turned into three nights. Visitors to Butare might wonder at how anyone could find things to do to spend four days there but, like I say, we were in no rush.

One half of the National Museum in Butare

Butare is basically one road, and at either end are the sites of interest to tourists: the National Museum and the university.

The museum is excellent. It’s just the right size for you to be able to look at everything and read all the information before you get bored. There’s good info on natural history and loads on traditional crafts and skills, including making clothing from fincus bark, beer from bananas and baskets, plates and wall hangings from all kinds of grasses.

Rwandans are seriously good at weaving; a basket like this is so tight it could probably take a bullet

The plates are prety cool too. The basic component is papyrus but they use all kinds of leaves and grasses

Other exhibits include the deputy chief’s house/hut from Nyanza, which was occupied until the 1950s. If you’ve already visited Nyanza (we hadn’t) then it’s very similar to the chief’s hut there.

The section on traditional beliefs and folk tales was one of our favourites. Jess spotted this, which we thought was beautiful:

When a newborn baby is given its name, hoes made from branches are distributed to the children present, who are asked to cultivate the soil. They are occasionally given seeds to plant. The ground is scattered with droplets of water to represent tears, and then the children are given food. Then each child is asked to give the baby a nickname, some of which are kept for childhood, or for life.

I can’t remember the price of entry, but it was either 3,000 or 4,000RwF (£3.30-£4.40). Either way, it won’t break the bank, and in a country that isn’t exactly awash with tourist attractions (if you don’t count gorillas, monkeys, safaris etc) this qualifies as a must-see.

Moving on from there, the university only qualifies as a site of interest precisely because there isn’t much else to do. It’s a working, apparently thriving uni, but that doesn’t in itself make it worth a visit. Two things do, though: firstly, it’s set in a beautiful arboretum, originally set up as a research park and now just a lovely place to take a wander and relax.

Secondly, if there’s football on TV then you could do a lot worse than check out the university auditorium: basically like watching the match in a cinema, complete with rows of tiered seats and a huuuuuuge screen.

First impressions of Kigali

Our first view of Kigali, from the Virunga minibus

It would be really easy to write something here that sounded authoratitive, making some sweeping statements about how Kigali feels and what’s going on here, but I don’t think it would be fair – not yet, anyway. This is a big city with a population of nearly a million people, and we’re still very much outsiders looking in. So I’ll post a few thoughts and leave it at that – anyone who knows the place better is welcome to correct, agree with or comment on how we’ve found the place.

Certainly when you compare Kigali to Kampala, it could hardly be more different. There are physical differences: Kigali’s smooth wide roads, traffic lights and zebra crossings versus Kampala’s dusty tracks, pedestrians mingling with the traffic and the heart-in-the-mouth experience of crossing the road. Ugandans and Rwandans could hardly be more different: here the people are quiet to the point of shyness, whereas in Uganda it was impossible to walk more than five metres without having to say hello to someone, and gregariousness just seems to be part of the national character. In Kampala people will stare openly and for prolonged periods; here is more like a normal city – people only stare when they think you aren’t looking. Here I think there’s a feeling that gawping just isn’t “cool”; in Kampala people are too concerned with getting through another day to worry about such things.

Of course, it’s also true that there are a lot more white faces here than in Kampala. Union Trade Centre, the 24-hour shopping complex in the centre of the city, has more Caucausians than you’d expect to find in a similar space in London. If there’s still an NGO “boom” here following the 1994 genocide, you have to wonder how some of these businesses will survive if the influx ever stops. A ghost town of once-prosperous but also overpriced coffee shops and supermarkets in the centre of a city is the perfect way to burst a bubble of optimism.

Our first reaction when we saw Rwanda, and Kigali in particular, was to sigh in relief. Life here is easier – both for residents and visitors – than in Uganda, and there’s something comforting about the reappearance of one or two modern comforts. But after a few days I think we started to miss the friendliness and the character of Kampala – at least, that is, until we discovered Nyamirambo, the quintessential African neighbourhood and somewhere we’ll come back to into a future post.