How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
by The Beave · Published February 8, 2016 · Last modified November 26, 2016
Rwanda to Uganda: From Gorillas to Potato Trucks. Feb 8 Time to leave my wonderful little village of Kinigi. It is time to get out of Rwanda. I had not ambition to leave the ‘Land of thousand hills and a million smiles,’ but I need to start making some miles and some dust. Time for the move from Rwanda to Uganda. I feel like I am going to cheat a lot of countries out of a lot of time, but...
Kinigi: Football and Rwanda Bits. Feb 7 (cont’d) I returned from my gorilla trek to Kinigi. I love Kinigi. It is my favorite village of all of my African travels. As soon as I went to the market I ran into Theo. I wanted lunch so I brought him along. The tour guides from today had earlier told me to eat in the hotel where I am staying, saying it was the only safe place in town to eat. However,...
Extreme Adventure / Rwanda 2016
by The Beave · Published February 7, 2016 · Last modified April 25, 2020
Today was a special day where I went to spend an hour with a silverback gorilla family in the mountains of Rwanda. It was a $750 US price tag for such an experience. But what I got for that hour today was pretty freaking amazing!
Kinigi: Drunk Diaries…Reflections on a Day After Drinking Banana Beer. Feb 6 Wow, where to start… Life is a gift…. Shit, I just looked at my notes and I did not get some things completed today that I really wanted to accomplish, because I had an amazing day as a consequence. I need more of me. Or I need my helpful editor to become my personal assistant…. It sure would be nice if mom and dad were from ABBA. I...
Gisenyi to Kinigi: Dian Fossey Gorilla Facts and Child Mobs. Feb 5 It is amazing how much small situations can totally alter your entire direction and where you are going in life. I do not mean, the entire future of your life when I say, “Where you are going”, though that is affected too. But I mean, your travel is entirely affected by very small situations. For example, if I knew they would not have accepted my out-dated $100 US...
Gisenyi: Spinning Tires. Feb 4 My morning began by asking for a pail of hot water, which was brought to the door of my room in Gisenyi. That was my shower this morning. I have never had the “bucket of hot water” treatment before. Usually one has hot water in the bathroom or you are at a “cold shower” hotel. I have found a hybrid. Much of the day was spent chasing around information in Gisenyi. I was shopping about...
Kibuye to Gisenye: Motorcycling Rwanda. Feb 3 There was a bus that was going to leave at 07:00 to go from Kibuye to Gisenyi, but that meant a 06:00 rise. I figured I would try to find another way or hitchhike if I had to, but I did not need to get up so early for the bus. By the time I showered, packed and was ready, it was 10:00. My friend Martin from Germany was heading to a town...
Kibuye: Lightning Strikes. Feb 2 My Dutch friend Philip and I went for a walk through the bush along the side of the lake. We were in territory that I am sure not other foreigners have been. I did not know what we were going to find, but after about one kilometer of mostly busy, shrubs and prickly plants, we came out to a clearing of homes and people fishing. After we found lunch, Philip thought it was too early...
Kigali to Kibuye: Rwanda is Beautiful. Jan 31 At 09:00, hotel management knocked on the door of my room to ask for money. I paid them and crawled back into bed beside Nana. We had another tussle this morning! Ah, life is good… We fell back asleep and got up at 13:00. She went home and I hung out in the bar to wait for Leopold. Leopold was too hung over and decided that he was not going to drive...
Kigali: African Nations Championship (CHAN). Jan 30 I checked out of my guesthouse and moved to Panafrican, which is the sports bar where I was last night and made friends with Joseph, the owner. He told me they also had rooms for around $10, which is half of the price I have paid for the previous two. I checked into a good room and then Joseph drove me in his car to Amahoro National Stadium for the African Nations Championship...
Kigali: A Vacation from Africa in Africa. Jan 29 (cont’d) I seem to be living on peanuts… I mean the actual nuts, but I am living off of nothing as well. Peanuts are my go-to for fighting off hunger when I get too preoccupied to remember to eat and then realize I had better put something in me to alleviate the void. They roast and salt them in the skin, that you eat as well, here and they are probably the...
Kigali Genocide Memorial Center. Jan 29 Today was a dark day and it made me teary eyed. I spent the afternoon at the Kigali Memorial Center of the genocide of 1994. It was free to enter as it is a place of mourning for the locals. This is what I learned this afternoon. There will be some horrible information and graphic photos here… *All points in “quotation marks” are direct quotations taken from the memorial. Kigali Genocide Memorial Center The...
by The Beave · Published January 28, 2016 · Last modified November 27, 2016
Masaka to Kigali: Hotel des Mille Collines. Jan 28 I need to get to Rwanda before I get too deep into Uganda, so I got up early and caught a bus from Masaka, Uganda to Kigali, Rwandan for $11.50. The bus that came that hour was one for a company called Jaguar. Every hour a different bus comes through town, usually for a different company. They all cost the same price. I found a place beside a Rwandan girl, who...
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