The city of a thousand hills

 


After a short hop from Athens we landed in Cairo and made our connection to Kigali, departing about 45 minutes late.  It became clear that we were entering a new phase of the trip as our hand luggage was X rayed and we were all patted down before being allowed to the departure gate, little did we know that this was just the first of many checks.

Flying into Cairo at night the sheer scale of the City is mind boggling, lights spreading out in all directions as far as the eye can see, the inky blackness of the Nile winding through the Center and the abrupt edge of the start of the utter darkness of desert a stark contrast. 


About an hour after departing Cairo I felt the plane take a gentle turn to the left and opened up the flight tracker.  You know you’re not in Kansas anymore when your plane has to detour to avoid rebels armed with SAM’s.  Rather than a direct path following the Nile down to Rwanda we took a distinct detour over the Red Sea to avoid Sudan where a civil war is raging and where rebels likely have access to surface to air missiles.  


Upon landing in Rwanda at 3:30am local time, we headed down the ramp into the tarmac in the humid night air which smelled of a mixture of kerosene and smoke or pollution, it was tough to know which.  We were clearly not in Europe anymore as we approached the first line of security to check our boarding passes (a totally new thing to me as I never keep my boarding pass once I’ve securely boarded but luckily I did for some reason this time - remember this if you’re travelling in this region), followed by a line up for customs and then another security checkpoint to X ray our hand luggage yet again before we were allowed in the baggage claim.  They must have been searching and X raying each piece of luggage as it came out on the belt literally one piece every 5 minutes. It was 4:30am local time by the time we got everything and headed out to meet our driver and guide for our entire time in Africa, Andrew from Pathway Safaris.


We piled into the extended Landrover which was made to fit as many as possible and without regard for luggage so our luggage was packed into the small area behind the seats taking up every square inch of room.  I found it odd that Andrew had brought / other guides with him until I saw the slight bulge in his waist, I assumed a weapon but couldn’t be sure but I’m fairly sure the extra people were for security.  


I have no idea what was up with the driver but we seemed to be crawling along at under 20 km/hr.  After driving with George whose speed varied between fast and super fast this was like a turtle and based on our tour of the city and a local art collective today it appears that this is how drivers behave with tourists.  More security checks ensued before we could actually enter the hotel with checking for bombs under the car and another metal detector at the entry.  I’m sure it supposed to make everyone feel safe but it has a bit of an opposite effect as it’s constantly in your face. 


Kigali is known for its art, the many active volcanoes in the region, the Genocide memorial and a popular local market, two of the latter which we will see on the way out of the city to the Gorilla reserve tommorrow.  There are great views from the many hills which the city is sited on, in fact it’s nickname is the City of a thousand hills and our tour was up one hill and down the other so it’s a apt name.  


We will all need to adjust our pace and slow it down to the beat of African time which is apparently about 1/5 the speed of European time.  


We are at the Marriot with all of the creature comforts that one would expect in this chain no matter what City in the world and today was mostly a day to hang out at the pool, get some much needed laundry done and get ready for our gorilla trek which starts on Tuesday.  


















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