We visited Kigali twice. Once when we arrived and once when we left. I have included both visits on this page
July 13 Sunday Valencia to Kigali
A long day, leaving home at 8 am and arriving in Kigali Serena hotel at 3 am: this was an hour later than expected as a Turkish airway flight from Istanbul to Kigali took off late.
Our first flight was from Valencia to Istanbul, then a change to go on to Kigali, Rwanda. We were travelling economy so nothing exciting to report but at least we didn’t have long to wait in Istanbul, so we did not miss the business lounge there.
We were met on leaving the plane at Kigali airport by an Expert Africa representative who got us through passport control and then showed us to a lounge whilst he took the luggage tickets to collect the suitcases: We thought this was a bit daft but at least we explained to him what our suitcases look like. So we felt that we spent an extra 5 or 10 minutes unnecessarily in the lounge, but it was very pleasant and we were given a bottle of water each. Then we were escorted outside with our suitcases to our driver guide, Jean Luc, who was to drive us for the duration of our time in Rwanda.
It was a 30 minute drive into the deserted city. and we were pleased to see the hotel Serena, previously the Intercontinental. Chris hit the hay immediately and David followed soon after.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
 |
 |
 |
 |
July 14 Monday . Kigali To Nyungwe
We surfaced after a much needed six hour solid sleep at 9 am and got down to breakfast soon afterwards.
It was a really nice hotel and the breakfast was excellent, but we did not really need very much and we sat outside on the Terrace of the restaurant with very pleasant views and the boys were admired by staff and passers by as they too enjoyed their breakfast at our table. . We then packed up the little we had unpacked and went downstairs to meet our guide at 10 am we had decided to delay the genocide museum until our final day back in Kigali
We set off immediately. After 2 1/2 hours we stopped for lunch as a restaurant called Stafford. We had to wait a very long time for Club sandwich that we had ordered and it was not worth waiting for . The mango and banana shakes were however superb. We think that another day we will just order two drinks for lunch unless something really takes our fancy. We then continued on to the Ethnological Museum of Rwanda. This was a large modern building which had had oodles of money spent on it, but there was probably far too much content in it. Anyway, halfway round a man of about 40 attached himself to us and gave us a guided tour for probably 45 minutes and this made it more interesting. Particularly impressive was the Kings house which sat in the middle of the museum.
Then on for another three hours drive with just a stop for an ATM machine which caused David considerable difficulties. The manager himself came out, the machine kidnapped his card, which had to be rescued from the innards of the ATM. but at last he got his money. Thus we arrived at the Hilltop Hotel just outside Nyungwe, at 6 pm having just passed through the town where there seemed to be hundreds of people on the street. Were they just looking at the sunset or are their houses not so nice to be inside?
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We then went on to tour Rwanda, starting at Nyungwe Forest National Park
Then on our way out of Rwanda we had a brief stop at Kigali when we saw the Genocide Museum - details below. Before leaving for Dar es Salaam and Rovos Rail
July 20 Sunday. Volcano National Park to Kigali.
We were back at the Mountain Gorilla Hotel by 11.15 and changed in our room and packed up after a little problem with the small suitcase ( I had apparently put the key of the padlock into the case, and it had been locked inside the case). We had an early buffet lunch outside the restaurant, packed a little box of desserts, and were away on our journey by about 12.20. And it was then a pleasant three hour drive through scenic mountain scenery to Kigali.
Here we went to the genocide memorial Museum, with an immense amount of security to enter it which included removing our suitcases from the car and having them put through a scanner. The museum was a good memory of the genocide but I found it difficult to understand the films we saw as they were all subtitled and I could not use my Ray Ban glasses to read details as a lot of the writing was in the local language and English was only in small print. But David did read out many of the panels and there were also two memorial stained glass windows the last rooms. One room gave details of other genocides around the world, those highlighted in detail being Namibia, Cambodia. and the Jewish Concentrations camps in Germany. In total there were about 1 million killed and to date only 70 people have been found guilty of this horrendous crime.
We were back in the car and at the same hotel by 5 pm. Here we questioned Jean Luc as to what was happening for our supper and it transpired that this was booked at a restaurant 15 minutes away by car. We did not need to get to the airport for our 2 am flight to Dar es Salaam via Addis Ababa, until midnight and it seemed a little daft to us making Jean Luc come back to pick us up around seven and then bring us back to the hotel and come back at 11:30. So we said we would skip dinner. I argued that the company could pay for the equivalent dinner in the hotel, but this apparently was impossible as they had already prepaid the restaurant - not over satisfactory. We also had a problem with reception who took over 20 minutes to register our passport, in the end explaining that they had not got a reservation to start with but then found one. Again very unsatisfactory.
Eventually we got a room and I went down for a swim, but we could not find a lift that went down to that floor so we went by the staircase and I managed to miss the final stair There was no rail for about six or seven steps, and hurt my right ankle. We sat down and a friendly waitress offered us an ice pack to put on it and after a while we proceeded to the pool and I had a 10 minute swim in this. It was very cold water, the temperature being 20° at the very most. Then back up to the room and a coffee and a snack and dictating this diary before reading for awhile and then having a 2 to 3 hour sleep before being picked up at 11:30.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
July 21 Monday. Kigali to Dar es Salaam
A long night with a 2 am take off on Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa and then a change to Dar es Salaam. It turned out that we stopped at Entebbe en route to Addis Ababa as well. The planes were full nearly all the way but each hop was fairly short so it was not too painful, but we did not get much sleep at all. We landed in Dar es Salaam after 11 am . The ankle was still problematic and I had had a wheelchair which was great fun off the plane right through passport control and luggage retrieval to the front door of the airport. Using this wheelchair service certainly saves time in foreign airports like Dar: we thought the terminal had been built since our last trip here which had been chaos coming through into the country. This time it was a new terminal with better immigration services
We were in the hotel Hyatt within an hour, needing a taxi to get there as the Uber network did not seem to stretch to the airport.