Rwanda: Kigali, Monkeys, & Gorillas

Monday morning we left Mexico City on our flight to Kigali, Rwanda. The flight included a scheduled 2 hour stop in Cancun and an 8 hour layover in Istanbul. We arrived on schedule (just after midnight on Wednesday morning). Traveling in Business Class on Turkish Air was again a real pleasure. The comforts of the Istanbul Turkish Air lounge in Istanbul made the layover easily manageable.

Making fresh Pide at the airport lounge

We were met and transferred to our hotel. After a 5 hour nap in our room and breakfast we took an hour walk to work off breakfast and get a little more acclimated to the 8 hour time shift. We walked from the hotel toward the center where the streets were lined with shops and vendors selling the vast array of products necessary for life. The 25ºC/77ºF morning temperature was quite pleasant and even the 29ºC/84ºF later in the afternoon was quite bearable.

Next morning we had a tour of the Genocide Memorial (commemorating the horrific  spring 1994 event) and the old and new parts of Kigali. Kinyarwanda or "Peace Stadium", officially known as Amahoro National Stadium, hosts football matches, concerts, and public events. BK Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena used mostly for basketball and volleyball matches.

The Rwandan genocide, aka the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from April 7 to July 19, 1994 over the course of some 100 days. The genocide was conceived by extremist elements of Rwanda’s majority Hutu population who planned to kill the minority Tutsi population and anyone who opposed those genocidal intentions. It is estimated that some 200,000 Hutu, spurred on by propaganda from various media outlets, participated in the genocide. More than 800,000 civilians—primarily Tutsi, but also moderate Hutu—were killed during the campaign. As many as 2,000,000 Rwandans fled the country during or immediately after the genocide. It is hard to believe this happened so recently.

Background: Hutu and Tutsi share a common language and culture but have historically been distinguished by their traditional roles as farmers (Hutu, 85% of population) and cattle herders/aristocrats (Tutsi, 14% of the population). While these distinctions were once more fluid, Belgian colonial powers exacerbated tensions by using these differences to create social and political divisions that eventually led to genocide. 

Post genocide, the relationship between the groups is a bit complicated. The government mandate is Rwandans are one ethnic group. Younger people seem to buy into that. Older people? I don't know. But whatever the case, it is a comfortable country to visit. 

Restaurants at the hotel complex were quite good, one featuring international cuisine and one focused more on local dishes. Plus there is one lunch of local food during our tour.

Our hotel was part of a complex including Hemingway's Retreat Kigali, Fusion Restaurant, Heaven Restaurant and Heaven Boutique Hotel.We stayed at the Retreat and checked out both restaurants finding both to be quite fine.

Dinner at Fusion - Goat Kofta, Porkbelly, Pinotage and a Bordeaux blend

Lunch at La Creola with guide gave us a taste of 8-10 typical local dishes.... Chardonnay & a Merlot

Dinner at Heaven - crispy avocado salad, Nile perch, Viognier, "Grandma's Chocolate Babka"

On the drive to the National Park to see the Gorillas we passed many locals walking or on motor scooter taxis.  Most were transporting a variety of goods from water to wood to food by bike or on their heads. Keep in mind, Rwanda is known as "The land of one thousand hills" and as much uphill as downhill. Sometimes there were several folks pushing just one bike loaded high with wood or bags of indeterminate goods. 

We arrived at Bishops House in Musanze, a resort style hotel, and had lunch poolside. Then we had to wait until our room iwas vacated. We discovered that we had arrived for the annual gorilla naming event attended by the Prime Minister whose entertaining was based in our room!  The room freed up around 7pm. To help us deal with the boredom, the hotel rewarded us free massages. 

Next morning at 6:30 we were off to see Golden Monkeys. We found the monkeys foraging in a potato field next to the forest. We got an hour or more watching them. The troop included a mom with her 2 week-old clinging to her chest.

Wildlife touring to see monkeys and gorillas in the area is coordinated through the Volcanoes National Park HQ in Musanze. Visitors arrive around 7:30 and are assigned to groups. Monkey tours average 15 visitors, gorilla tours average 8 visitors. 

On our way to see the Golden Monkeys, we walked thru fields of Pyrethum, Yep , the stuff they put on clothing as an insecticide except most Pyrethrum today is man made.. It looks like daisies. Pyrethrum has been a cash crop since the 1930s.

Afterwards we visited the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Kinigi Women Craft Village.

The Gorilla Fund Center had a range of displays about Gorillas including details on ones Dian Fossey had named and observed over the years. Gorillas live together in groups. Each troop typically has 20 to 30 gorillas. This usually includes a dominant male, known as a silverback (due to an area of white hair on their back), several females and their young offspring. Females only have 3 to 4 babies in their entire lifetime. Life expectancy in the wild is between 35-40 years..

We were very lucky with our gorilla trek  We were assigned to visit the Agashya family (the name means Special.) The family of 24 took it easy on us. They chose to stay in the lowlands for our visit. We walked maybe 30 minutes before finding them and only had any rough terrain once we were visiting with them. We talked with someone whose group visited with the Agashya earlier in the week. On their visit they spent 2-3 hours finding the gorillas who had decided on an active climbing day. The Agashya are a two male family. The silver-back (about 40 years old) is in semi - retirement and his baby boy (about 12 years, too young to be a silver-back) is carrying the leadership responsibility for the family. Note: Humans share about 98% of their DNA with gorillas, making them readily susceptible to human diseases. Consequently visitors to the gorillas are told to wear face masks. 

The silver-back crossed two feet in front of Bill. 

Check our posting "Gourmet Rwanda: Meza Malonga" for details of our break between visiting with the Golden Monkeys and the Gorillas.

The next day we returned to Kigali to catch our flight to Nairobi Kenya where we met up with Dave & Shelly who joined us for the rest of our adventure in Africa and the Middle-East .