This morning we set out on the last leg of our journey through East Africa. The two hour drive to Kigali was much like drive to Gisenyi the day before: well-maintained mountain roads with plenty of curves, traffic of all sorts, a relaxed driving pace, and beautiful views. By lunchtime we were driving through the […]

Read More Arriving in Kigali

After yesterday’s mental and physical bruising on the volcano, we were ready for a day of relaxation. Where do the locals in Musanze go to chill out? The beach, apparently. We loaded up the van with all the dinner guests from yesterday, plus another one of Jeff’s friends, Bahati (our new arrival from Kigali, more […]

Read More Beach Day + Bonus Congo

After our hike we were pretty hungry. Hungry enough, perhaps, to eat this many potatoes: My history isn’t that great, but one thing I thought I remembered was that potatoes were from South America. So I was bit surprised at the number of potatoes being grown in East Africa. Turns out they were brought over […]

Read More A Rwandan Dinner

Woke up in Musanze to an overcast sky that warned of rain. Thinking back, we found it remarkable that we couldn’t remember being in rain even one time on the trip so far. It rained overnight in Kampala once, but otherwise it had been dry during the days and while traveling. Today we were taking […]

Read More Papa #1 or the Assault on Bisoke

The 48 hour plan last night was to be in Rwanda by tomorrow night. This required a couple of days of driving, so we’re out of bed early, first in line to catch the 7am ferry back across the Nile. Not a day for lazy sightseeing, we were retreading our previous tracks and heading to […]

Read More Roaring out of Uganda

Murchison Falls National Park is a 5-6 hour drive north from Kampala. We did that, and it took 5-6 hours! The park is 4000-some square kilometers (big) and has more in common with United States’ wilderness areas than it does our national parks, in my mind. Mostly gravel roads (being rebuilt by a Chinese construction […]

Read More Murchison Falls National Park

For the sake of simplicity and because I’m writing this up a few days later, I’ll put our two-day (three night) Kampala writeup into a single, long post. Our arrival on Saturday evening started with ditching Jeff and Tim at the Sheraton Kampala, while Liz and I continued on with Denis to his house. We […]

Read More Our Kampala Experience

I mean, sure, who among us can’t lay claim to an island on the Nile river? Our friend, driver and local guide, Denis, is among that group. He has a small island below the first major set of whitewater below the official source of river at Lake Victoria. Fun fact: Did you know that the […]

Read More “An Island on the Nile”