A trip to Rwanda

From Wednesday 6th January to Sunday the 10th, we went on a trip to Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda to renew our visas for the next three months. The good news is that we're back in Uganda now and not illegal immigrants!!

We set off from the Smile house at 5:30 AM just as the sun was rising to meet Innocent, who accompanied us to Rwanda. Although the early morning was a bit of a shock to us, the beautiful sunrise made up for it. It's now a running joke amongst us gappers that I can't watch a sunrise or sunset without taking a photo, which was proved right as I ended up running down the hillside with my bags to catch everyone else up.

Sunrise

Walking down the hill with my pillow

Then came the eleven hour coach journey to Rwanda, which wasn't as bad as it sounds. I really enjoyed looking at the landscape out of the window as I love lush green countryside so it made a nice change to the urban landscape of Kampala.

Kate and I on the coach

We stayed at Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel, which was very pretty, with rustic balconies decorated with greenery. It was nice to spend time relaxing there.

Youth hostel

On Thursday afternoon we visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which was both harrowing and interesting, A few years ago, I read a memoir by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s called 'Left to Tell' and this gave me some background to the the atrocities that happened. After learning more about what happened, it was good to have the opportunity to visit the memorial outside to pay our respects to the victims of the genocide. The gardens surrounding this memorial were very peaceful and a wonderful tribute,

Over the next few days, we had  exploring Kigali as a city and testing the restaurants. It's a very different city to Kampala and they are both equally great cities. 

Simba restauraunt

Lois and Innocent

Fountain in Kigali city centre

Our trip was exciting and a fantastic break but we are glad to be back in our second 'home' Kampala! Each of our visas has been renewed for another three months so we are looking forward to all that time will bring.