Going independent in Rwanda..... A whim away, a whim away.

I'll admit that even I was a little nervous about the idea of coming to Africa without the support and structure of a guided tour. Heck I even lied to my parents about it. I ssured them that we were doing this trip wrapped in cotton wool with every meal and every toilet stop pre-planned by a money hungry tourist outfit. But, in the end, we decided that we could do it solo (we aren't the first, I did loads of research) and by doing it solo we would save a packet (more money for more primate tours?), we could come up with our own Salange slothful itinerary, and we could chose when and where to pee.

So, we are here now, faces in the lonely planet, doing Kigali like every other independent traveller before us.

We started with lost baggage. The process of filing the report certainly had a feeling of Thai style Mai Ben Lai but it was dashed with more assurance than I've come to expect from my second homeland. This was perhaps the first instance of I'm not in Thailand anymore that I felt. The second came soon after when a woman of traditional size and costume booted me from my seat in the baggage claim waiting room. Hey, it was my fault for not offering it up. Facial to me.

My bag eventually showed up (as promised) but not before I invested in a tacky tourist T-shirt and a couple of pairs of granny undies. Oh how I will enjoy shopping in Africa. If I lost my bags coming to Thailand for the first time I would have had to purchase two pairs of knickers and taken them to a tailor to sow them together!!

GETTING THE GORILLA PERMITS

Anyway, I really want to talk about the process of obtaining the gorilla trekking permits. Maybe someone will stumble upon this and find it useful. Maybe it's only my mum and sister reading and they are still freaking out about the independent in Rwanda part of this post.

After days and days of reading forum after forum about trusted and untrusted gorilla tours I decided to just contact the Rwanda Develpment Board (formally ORTPN) and organise everything directly with them. I sent off a quick email to reservation@rwandatourism.com and got a quick reply from Norbert. He gave me some date options, I wired 1000 US bucks to the RDB bank account (not going lie, I was extremely nervous this - why is his email address .com?!?!) and then I emailed him a copy of my bank transfer. Two weeks later (yep, I did all of this two weeks before coming to Rwanda. Probably not a good idea in high season) I rock up to the new RDB offices, not the ORPTN building listed on the lonely planet map, and I picked up my two permits.

Piece. Of. Cake.

Ok, so we still need to get ourselves to the the National Park. But we are still going to do this as efficiently and independently as possible. Hello 5 dollar bus trip.

More to come. Hopefully some pics of baby gorillas too!!!

A whim away.....

Our hotel is in a leafy suburb on one of the many hills of this city. We walked around (and got lost) yesterday and i was mesmerized the whole time by my surroundings. The people we passed on the street. The billboards. The immaculate roads with the less than immaculate driving. The huge houses on the left that we're hiding behind giant brick walls. The small huts that lined the hills on my right. I couldn't work out what I was looking at. Couldn't put it all together. It was (and is) unlike any where I've been before. I'm mean there are elements of everywhere topped off with elements that are completely new to me.  Not surprising I guess. I haven't been to this city or this country or even this continent before!

Now, the thunder and heavy drops of rain is cooling of the heat of day here in Kigali. I actually still can't believe I'm here, in Rwanda, in freaking Africa. 

We ventured out to be tourists today, first picking up our gorilla trekking permits (the ease of this process was unexpected!) and then a stop at the genocide memorial and museum. Nothing could have prepared me for it. Nothing to stop me from crying. Or from asking why? Or for just being mad at the world for allowing it all to happen. Even now I'm taking long and silent pauses to find words. Huh, how fucking obnoxious of me. I wasn't there. I barely even heard about it. I was 14. I should've known. All this just makes me even more sad and angry. 

But, one thing I did learn today is that there is no time or room for anger for the people of Rwanda. How they have rebuilt this country in less than 20 years is something that you really need to see for yourself. 

I'm sure that I'll continue to think about the darkness that drove this country to genocide just 18 years ago for the rest of this trip. Hopefully for the rest of my life. 

The optimist is hoping that the world will never allow this to happen again. 

The realist is afraid that it is already is. Not here. But somewhere.