I wanted to post stories while in Rwanda, but the group was so busy that there was hardly time to do anything but eat, sleep and see the sites. But now that I'm back from the trip eight time zones away, I plan on giving a full report on everything we saw. I want to start here though with a brief overview of what we did in Rwanda, and then go into each stop in more detail later with adding various tips and suggestions for anyone traveling to Rwanda; there's just so much to write that it's impossible to put it all in one post without making the reader a bit bug-eyed no matter how amazing the travel.

After the long journey overseas via Washington Dulles, Zurich and Nairobi, I finally landed in Kigali and about 3am. The delay in Nairobi, Kenya was just insane and I honestly thought I'd be forced to spend the night in the smelly airport. But thankfully I finally arrived and was able to get a solid night's rest before heading out to the Global Energy Awards the next night, where we saw the Rwandan Prime Minister.

The following day, after a night of no sleep thanks to a hotel room that made me yearn for a Motel 6, we took a very brief tour of the capitol city of Kigali. Part of the tour involved seeing what various neighborhoods look like in the town, including those developed and constructed by the Rwandese. We also made the difficult stop at the Genocide Memorial to learn more about what transpired in 1994. It was hard to stomach, to say the least, but also a most necessary visit in an attempt to understand just how far the country has come since then.

As we left to go to the northwest town of Ruhengeri our group took a detour to the famed hotel from the movie Hotel Rwanda. It was interesting to stop at the famed Hotel Des Milles Collines, or the Hotel of a Thousand Hills, for which the country is known as, but we had no time for anything but a few photos and a beer before heading out on a beautiful two hour drive to where we'd see the Kwita Izina gorilla naming ceremony, as well as go on our own gorilla safari.

Both events we participated in while in Ruhengeri, along with a local festival the night we arrived to celebrate the events in the town, were quite enjoyable; the gorilla hike was amazingly difficult though. Our time in Ruhengeri was probably the best of the whole trip as saw and did more here than anywhere else we traveled. The other stops on the trip were nice too, but they really didn't have a chance at comparing to, or equalling, our stay here.

Still though, we continued on farther west to the beachfront town of Gisenyi, right on the massive Lake Kivu and the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I yearned to cross the border and set foot in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, however briefly, but decided instead just to relax by at the pool-side bar with a few drinks and the group for the night. I was exhausted anyway by this point since we had been running nonstop for the past few days.

We didn't spend near enough time in Gisenyi, which would also be the case for the rest of the trip, as the next morning we immediately set off for a cruise across the lake to the south where we'd stop, after a short drive, at the Nyungwe Forest Lodge. I'll talk more about it, as well as the other hotels, more in depth later, but, before moving on, I should note that I was rather disappointed we did not see more of Gisenyi as I read that it's a rather interesting town. And what little of it we saw on the boat tour while heading south certainly confirmed that.


On our cruise, other than spying spots of Gisenyi, we also stopped on a small island that shares both Rwandese and Congolese inhabitants for a short dance performance. It was interesting to see this, but what was most noticeable were the smiles on everyone's faces. Part of it I think was the amazement of seeing a group of white people on the island, but it also seemed to be simply because, despite their great poverty, the people were generally happy in life. This certainly gave me a moment's pause as I think of all the possessions, myself included, westerners collect to make them happy as the disparity in mentality was really quite extreme.

And as I was thinking of this, no sooner did we pull into the five star forest lodge, and none too soon as I was coming down with a cold at this point as we had been run ragged with all the travel. It was all worth it, but it certainly would've been nice to have more time to do and see things along the way. Because we didn't, and we arrived at the lodge late, we unfortunately missed treks to see both the chimps and Colobus monkeys. I was as disappionted with this as I was with what we missed in Gisenyi, but was happy nonetheless to be enjoying such an amazing property - a place President Paul Kagame was booking a visit to as we were leaving.

The next day was one of the longest of my life as I spent the next 45 hours traveling back home to Denver in a drive from the lodge, airport layovers, and three flights back. It was all worth it though as I saw some pretty amazing things and did stuff that I very well may never do again; I just wish there was more time as there was so much that we were told we'd do that wasn't able to be fit in. But, as so many people we met always said, "when you come back," as if our return is a foregone conclusion.

Then again, maybe it is.