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.