crossing borders

We made it out to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali on Saturday and took a free tour through its various exhibits.  By this time we heard many stories from genocide survivors.  The memorial was a very powerful tribute to the survivors and displayed the root causes of the genocide.  It is also the location of a mass grave filled with the bodies of unidentified victims.  It was the first time I saw video of the actual genocide and its aftermath.  I got the same sick feeling that I experienced when taking a tour of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland a few years ago.  We spent a couple hours there and then met up with a friend Ashley, who we met during the 4th of July Embassy event.

The next day we left in the middle of the morning to the downtown bus stop for our two day trip to Gisenyi, Rwanda and Goma, DRC.  This place is a cluster of people, mototaxis, and buses.  There is no rhyme or reason behind the location of where the various buses operate.  We took a company called Virunga Express because they had a website and the guy on the phone spoke English.  It turned out they were also the best deal in town.  For less than $5 we took a three and a half bus ride from Kigali to the lakeside town of Gisenyi.

This was quite possibly the worse bus ride ever.  The bus itself was a decent looking modern bus – I think it was even a Mercedes.  Then the driver started the engine.  The flip down TV started to play rap and hip hop, like, the kind you see on BET after 11PM; just raunchy and totally inappropriate for a bus trip.  To make things worse, the “music” videos were being played at decibel levels that violated the Geneva Convention’s rules against torture.  I even brought ear plugs with me but they only helped to exaggerate the bass of the music.  This concert of pain lasted for an hour when the bus driver decided to put an end to the loop of bootlegged music videos.  I thought he was doing us a favor until I discovered what came on next.  It was some kind of Rwandan “comedy” that consisted of an “actor” who sounded like a cross between one of those Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz and nails on a chalkboard.  This show was being played at full volume and the sick part was that people were actually laughing at the dialogue.  None of us wanted to be “that guy” so no one asked the driver to turn the volume down to an appropriate level (like mute).  We finally got to Gisenyi, a town with a few paved roads and many hotels and resorts.

We found a cheap place to stay at a Presbyterian guest house downtown for about $5 per person.  We met a couple of travelers who were staying next door: two women, one from Canada and one from Australia.  They were in the country for a gorilla trek.  Maurice, Matt, and I went down the hill to the beach on Lake Kivu.  The beach was no Zuma, but it was sandy and the water was a deep blue and a nice temperature.  Unfortunately, it was not advisable to swim in the lake because of parasites and other nasty things that can make life unpleasant for years to come.

We made our way down the beach toward the Serena Hotel which is a really nice resort located at the end of the beach road.  Maurice even managed to buy “African” art from a vendor on the way into the hotel.  Apparently the staff thought we were staying there because we made our way to their private beach area which included a hot tub and pool.  There were Muzungus everywhere!  We saw Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Asians, and other Africans.  Everyone had money and the hotel’s grounds reflected this fact.  The place looked more like Malibu than Rwanda.  I noticed some kayaks at the edge of the beach and we found out we could rent one for about $10 for an hour.  We each got one and rowed out on the lake.  I thought it would be a good idea to see if we can reach this small peninsula with our time limit, but we never made it that far.  It turned out it was better we didn’t because the peninsula was in the Democratic Republic of Congo – not a place you want to illegally cross over to.  After returning our kayaks we sat down and watched the sun set over the lake.  It was an amazing sight and marked our first vacation together as a group.

The next morning we met our neighboring travelers and headed out for a trip across the border into Congo.    Things are not really good across the border: war, famine, and volcanic eruptions.  Rwanda even went to war with Congo and genocide perpetrators hide out in the forests near the border and make raids into Rwanda from time to time.  But the political situation is supposedly improving and it was safe to visit the border town of Goma during the day.  Unfortunately our Australian friend did not cross with us because she would have to buy another visa to get back into Rwanda, so the three of us and our Canadian friend proceeded.

The Rwanda-DRC border was very simple: two guard shacks with gates separated by 50 yards of empty land.  Getting the exit stamp was a matter of waiting in line.  We crossed the Rwandan line, entered Congo, and proceeded to the immigration office right next to the guard shack.  A Congolese police officer took our passports and vaccination cards and we waited abut 30 minutes before we had to pay the $35 entry fee.  The process was made easier because our Canadian friend spoke fluent French.

We got our passports and vaccine cards back and proceeded down the unpaved road to Goma.  A woman that exchanged currency came up to us and we exchanged one dollar into Congolese currency to have as a souvenir.  So far everything looked like Gisenyi except the mototaxi guys had different helmets.  We continued to walk down the road past nice hotels and a big sign informing people about HIV/AIDS featuring Chris Brown.  We turned the corner onto the main street.  It was unpaved, filled with cars, and under construction.  The only real difference at this point was the unpaved road surface and the large number of UN vehicles.  We went up the road toward what we hoped was a cheap place to eat.  We stopped at one restaurant that featured “NO WEAPONS” signs and $15 goat kabobs; no thanks.  We then stumbled upon a very nice restaurant called Sole which offered a $5 buffet.  It was nice inside, like an African lodge, and the manager was friendly.  We decided to continue downtown and come back in an hour when lunch was ready.

Downtown was where all illusions of similarity between Congo and Rwanda ended.  There was UN base with armed guards wearing their silly blue helmets.  It was the Indian army that was in charge around these parts and they were posted at the entrance of a UN hospital that treated UN and Congolese soldiers.  We talked to one of the doctors and he told us there were 5,000 UN peacekeepers in Congo and that most the tours in the area were canceled but that Goma was safe in during the day.

We went further into the middle of downtown and down some smaller streets.  The ground was covered in black ash and rocks from the volcanic eruption sent lava flowing down the streets a few years ago.  Unlike Rwanda, there was a ton of garbage littering the ground.  Also unlike Rwanda, no one was freaking out that a bunch of white people were walking down the street.  This was amazing because we were in an area with no UN personnel or other foreigners.  But no one cared and no one asked for money.

The streets were lined with hotels and shops that sold food, clothes, and other household goods.  We asked a man for directions to the market and he led us to a grocery store – not what we were looking for, but we went in anyway.  This place was very cool; it was a modern supermarket with everything you could find at Ralph’s but made in India.  They had a bakery and I bought an eclair for $1.  It was awesome!  I don’t think I had any pastry the whole time we were here and this eclair really made me long for home.  We made it to the buffet, which was one of the best we had during our whole trip in Africa.  We ate and set off to find the real market again.

We retraced our steps and continued deeper downtown.  Some English speaking Congolese guy attached himself to Matt and was trying to sell him something.  Maurice and I watched him carefully in case he tried something.  We were getting into a sketchier part of town, if that’s even possible.  It was getting late and we had to catch our bus back to Kigali so we agreed to start heading back.  We went through town again and back to the border.  We got our stamps and entered Rwanda again.  Back to civilization!

We walked back to town and said goodbye to our Canadian friend.  She was really a godsend because without her French skills we would have been stuck at the border for a while.  Plus she was very interesting; she mortgaged her home to take a trip to Antarctica!  We got on the bus going back to Kigali.  It was much nicer and didn’t have the same torturous music as t he first one.  We got back to the city after dark, ate downtown, and took a taxi back home.

It was a fun trip and the three of us finally got to get out together.  Depending if we can scrape together enough money, we may have one last sweet trip before we leave next week!  Until next time…

Advertisement