The deep dark Africa; Rwanda and Uganda

Rwanda

After our rather difficult entry into Rwanda we had an easier time. Rwanda is a very (unafrican) organised country: hardly any corruption, clean streets, everything nicely organised and rather well maintained. It is also the most densely populated country in Africa: people and houses everywhere. There is not a lot of tourism in Rwanda. Either high-end or none. That made camping a bit more difficult, but we managed. One time we had to stay in a hotel, but the other times we could camp on the parking lot of a hotel which was mostly pretty good.

Rwanda is a beautiful country: the country of the milles collines (thousand hills). It is green and the climate is very agreeable: warm days, cool nights. We spent there a bit over a week: in Kigali, at Lake Kivu on the Congolese border and we climbed one of the volcanoes, called Bisoke, on the border with Congo and Uganda (and by coincidence bumping into a group of gorillas). Very different aspects of this small country.

In Kigali we visited the Genocide Memorial, which was very impressive. It is hard to realize that everybody you see walking around in Rwanda has lived through this horrible time (except children). It made a big impact on us.

Lake Kivu is a large lake bordering Rwanda with Congo. Surrounded by numerous hills it has a picturesque atmosphere. We visited two places; Kibuye and Gisenyi, the latter a border town with Congo, laying against its Congolese counterpart Goma (Sander worked there in 2007 in an assignment for Celtel). Gisenyi houses the Bralirwa brewery, owned by Heineken. The company has a near-monopoly position in Rwanda with a 95% market share in the beverage market, serving brands like Primus, Mutzig, Turbo King and also Coca Cola. We visited its only brewery (in Kigali there is a soft drink bottling plant) along the shore of Lake Kivu.

Through a local contact we also visited a large primary and secondary school located on the top of one of the hills near Gisenyi. Being Muzungu (African for White-people) our visit did not remain unnoticed by the 600 ??? children in the age of 4-18 yrs. In every one of the 8 classes we introduced ourselves, talked a bit in English and told some stories about life in Holland. Nice experience. The school has a team of 15 teachers, but only one of them is licenced as a teacher.

Uganda

Not as economically ripe and organised as Rwanda, Uganda is still experiencing slow but steady economic growth over the past years. People are relatively happy with the current peaceful situation. Its ruling president, Museveni, has been in charge over the past 30 (??) years (remember that before that time the warlord mr. Scotland ruled with terrifying power). On February 18 new elections were scheduled and it was said that foreigners were better off leaving the country before that time. So we planned our trip leaving for Kenya on-time before the elections. During our stay we noticed the upcoming elections in all billboards, free t-shirts and rallies by the candidates (places to be avoided at that time. Everything stayed quiet, Museveni was re-elected more than 60% (as expected), though several foreign observers have reported inconsistencies in the votes. 

As long-time traveller you use the capitals of the African countries as points to refuel/improve yourself and your car, get rid of the multiple dust-layers, arrange any required paperwork and talk to other travellers about upcoming hurdles. As Ethiopia is not providing visa anymore for foreigners travelling over land, we had to send our passports with DHL to Holland to acquire the visa at the embassy in Brussels.

Uganda is a pretty green country bordering the large Lake Victoria in the East and Lake Albert in the West. It is also famous for being the “source of the Nile river”,  which floats from Lake Victoria at Jinja all the way through Uganda and Sudan into Egypt where is released into the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria. At Murchison Falls the Nile runs through a beautiful environment where hippos and crocodiles spend their easy lives on  the shores. We spent the night here camping in the bush together with an armed ranger. During the night and in the early morning we used this professional animal searcher to track down lions and leopards, which we of course did not find. We almost bumped into grazing hippos driving in the night and were literally eaten by hundreds of mosquitoes (Sander counted 145 bites the following morning). 

Being a part of the Great Rift valley (we keep following it…) the lakes district under Fort Portal is dotted with crater lakes in lush surroundings. Our car stood on the ridge of one of these craters, surrounded by rain forest with trees full of monkeys (the Colobus one is funny to see). In the morning about 12 of them watched us having breakfast on 1 meter distance.