Kigali, Rwanda (Nov. 4-6, 2011)

In short, Kigali was awesome. As the capital city of Rwanda, I assume it showcased the best of Rwanda. It was orderly, clean, and well laid-out. It had a very different feel, vibe, and look than Kampala, the capital city of Uganda (which I also assume, in theory, showcases the best of Uganda).

The weekend trip was marked by a lot of wandering around and confusion (e.g. incorrect bus route, incorrect time zone, incorrect citizenship, incorrect street, incorrect hotel....) which made for some good belly-laughs, afterward. We DID notice that the confusion also extended to the elevators at the Hotel des Milles Collines (I couldn't seem to rotate the picture...sorry).

Updated details:
Bussing from Masaka to Kigali was a pain and took about 9-10 hours. We found out much later that the bus we had hopped onto was taking the very, extremely long route out of Uganda. I suppose this is what happens when one travels without much of a plan. I don't know what it is about sitting on a bus all day that is so exhausting, but it is.

At the border, we all got off the bus and had to walk across (after visiting the outgoing Ugandan immigration office). As a Canadian, I had to pay a $30USD entry visa fee. The visa only came into effect in 2010 and I found out afterward from Heather that it's in response to Canada's idiotic immigration policy for Rwandans that has them indicate whether they are part of the 'Hutu' or 'Tutsi' tribe. Um, hello, Canadian government -- but didn't colonial classification of people result in something called genocide in 1994? The government's justification is that they want to prevent perpetrators of genocide from entering Canada. *cue massive eyeroll*.

Rwanda is known as the "Country of a Thousand hills", and Kigali certainly is hilly - beautifully so. And the organized, regulated system of boda boda taxis was a beautiful sight to behold after having gotten used to playing "dodge the boda bodas" on a daily basis. We spent our time in Kigali by visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, which houses a beautiful and moving exhibit regarding the 1994 genocide. I know it sounds like it would be super depressing but it was very well laid-out and obviously had the aim of looking forward in hope and learning from this tragedy.

Aside from the museum, we did a lot of wandering around the streets, stopped in at the Hotel des Milles Collines (aka "Hotel Rwanda"), and hit up a crafts market. Popping in and out of dimly lit little shops, looking at crafts (if not made locally, at least made in East Africa), and participating in the "how much is this/how much will you offer for this" dance is always good fun.

On the food front: We had real hamburgers, which we had been missing. And there was a French influence noted in the food, likely due to the Belgian/French colonists.

The next morning, we caught the 5am bus back to Masaka, since we figured it would take another 9-10 hours to get back. It was while we were waiting for our bus that we figured out that Rwanda is an hour behind Uganda which meant we were at the bus station before 4am and had spent the entire previous day an hour off. How does that even happen?! This explains our confusion about why the museum wasn't open yet, at 8:50am (according to Alex's watch) despite the sign saying it was open at 8am. This also explains the patient yet slightly exasperated way the guard at the museum was trying to explain that the museum wasn't yet open when we asked and pointed at the sign (yes, we were THOSE tourists). This also explains why, when we stopped back into the Hotel des Milles Collines after dinner to check out the advertised live music, there was no band playing despite the poster saying they would start at 7pm and Alex's watch said it was 7:30pm. Needless to say, it was a very silent bus ride back to Uganda. Thankfully, the trip back was much more pleasant - we got on the desired and significantly shorter bus route.