In Rwanda, will travel - but to where?
February 25, 2018 9:36 AM Subscribe
In July, my husband is travelling from Canada to Rwanda for a work trip. He'll be in Huye. I'm thinking of joining him towards the end of his work assignment, and then travelling around a bit for a week or two after. I'm just starting my research now, but need to narrow things down a bit. Where should we go?
Just stick around Rwanda? Or head elsewhere? Pretty much any option, (within financial reason) is open to us so if you ave suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Bonus question: If - and it's a big IF, I should happen to get pregnant between now and then - I presume I should cancel the trip because of Zika risk. Right?
Just stick around Rwanda? Or head elsewhere? Pretty much any option, (within financial reason) is open to us so if you ave suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Bonus question: If - and it's a big IF, I should happen to get pregnant between now and then - I presume I should cancel the trip because of Zika risk. Right?
Is this your first trip to Africa? I spent 3 months in Rwanda (not far from Butare) and i think what’s so cool about Rwanda is how different it is from other parts of Africa.
During my time there I traveled around the country a bit to see friends in different places. Honestly, i would spend a couple of days in Butare to see where your partner has been, then (in no particular order) head to Gisenyi/ trip to an active volcano in Goma, DRC, do the gorilla trek (depending on your partners visa he may be able to get a nice discount, maybe a safari in Akagera National Park, and then fly out.
I know people who have found that doing the gorilla trekking on the Ugandan side is cheaper but in my case it wasn’t worth the hassle (and I had a visa that mostly cut the price tag in half). Wherever you go, make sure you book well in advance.
My personal preference would be a trip I’ve done before! Fly to Tanzania (Moshi), spend a day and do a day hike on Kilimanjaro (or another mountain), then head to Arusha and take a 3-4 day safari, then fly to Zanzibar and spend time eating phenomenal food and enjoying crystal waters. From there, fly back to Canada (jumper flight to Dar es Salaam and onward from there).
posted by raccoon409 at 1:24 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
During my time there I traveled around the country a bit to see friends in different places. Honestly, i would spend a couple of days in Butare to see where your partner has been, then (in no particular order) head to Gisenyi/ trip to an active volcano in Goma, DRC, do the gorilla trek (depending on your partners visa he may be able to get a nice discount, maybe a safari in Akagera National Park, and then fly out.
I know people who have found that doing the gorilla trekking on the Ugandan side is cheaper but in my case it wasn’t worth the hassle (and I had a visa that mostly cut the price tag in half). Wherever you go, make sure you book well in advance.
My personal preference would be a trip I’ve done before! Fly to Tanzania (Moshi), spend a day and do a day hike on Kilimanjaro (or another mountain), then head to Arusha and take a 3-4 day safari, then fly to Zanzibar and spend time eating phenomenal food and enjoying crystal waters. From there, fly back to Canada (jumper flight to Dar es Salaam and onward from there).
posted by raccoon409 at 1:24 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
We've just come back from two months traveling in Africa, part of that time was spent in Rwanda. It's a beautiful country and the capital city, Kigali, is spectacularly clean and friendly. We were visiting our daughter so we took public transportation but tours are also possible;
In Kigali: fantastic restaurants and lovely hotels. We stayed at Heaven and at Mille des Collines. We liked both. Mille des Colllines has a traditional Rwandan dance troupe perform every Friday that was amazingly good. Both places had excellent breakfast and Heaven had amazing dinners. The Genocide Memorial is well worth a visit, as is the gift shop which displays and sells traditional Rwandan dung art that is quite beautiful. There are art centers in Kigali that are worth visiting as well if you are interested in buying art. We walked around the city quite a bit without problem, getting a taxi is super easy but negotiate the price. It is really a lovely city.
Lake Kivu is beautiful, on the border with the DRC and there are a number of both cheap and very expensive hotels to stay at there. Have the Lake Kivu fish on the menu - it's amazingly good and super fresh. You can take a boat out onto the lake that will take you to an island inhabited by chimpanzees. The birds in the are are amazing.
We went on the Gorilla Trek and it was awe inspiring. We took the bus from Lake Kivu to Musanze, stayed in a hotel there and the Gorilla Trek company picked us up the day of our visit to the park. The cost just tripled this year (now about 1500$) and you can do the same thing in Uganda for a third of the cost ($500 I think). We had scheduled a hike up one of the volcanoes but it was pouring rain that day so we cancelled it. From what I read, it's strenuous but worth it.
There is a new national park where you can go on safari - we didn't do that because we were on safari in Etosha National Park in Namibia earlier in our trip - but from what I understand the wild life is rapidly repopulating the park and it's a quite good safari.
We really loved Rwanda - outside the capital living gets very basic (no running water, intermittent electricity) but the country side is very beautiful. The country is in general very safe and we saw lots of military police patrolling the streets. That said, when getting off the bus in Kigali, I was retrieving my backpack from the back of the bus from two workers and as I bent over, some kid pickpocketed my phone out of my pocket. I felt it immediately and started yelling - the kid dropped the phone immediately and four Rwandans grabbed him. I didn't call the police - the kid looked terrified - but one of the Rwandans slapped in on the face a few times, yelled at him and let him go. My daughter said that the kid was probably terrified he was going to get beaten - there are strong societal peer pressures to behave. So if you go the bus station, or anywhere with crowds, mind your belongings!
posted by bluesky43 at 4:58 PM on March 2, 2018
In Kigali: fantastic restaurants and lovely hotels. We stayed at Heaven and at Mille des Collines. We liked both. Mille des Colllines has a traditional Rwandan dance troupe perform every Friday that was amazingly good. Both places had excellent breakfast and Heaven had amazing dinners. The Genocide Memorial is well worth a visit, as is the gift shop which displays and sells traditional Rwandan dung art that is quite beautiful. There are art centers in Kigali that are worth visiting as well if you are interested in buying art. We walked around the city quite a bit without problem, getting a taxi is super easy but negotiate the price. It is really a lovely city.
Lake Kivu is beautiful, on the border with the DRC and there are a number of both cheap and very expensive hotels to stay at there. Have the Lake Kivu fish on the menu - it's amazingly good and super fresh. You can take a boat out onto the lake that will take you to an island inhabited by chimpanzees. The birds in the are are amazing.
We went on the Gorilla Trek and it was awe inspiring. We took the bus from Lake Kivu to Musanze, stayed in a hotel there and the Gorilla Trek company picked us up the day of our visit to the park. The cost just tripled this year (now about 1500$) and you can do the same thing in Uganda for a third of the cost ($500 I think). We had scheduled a hike up one of the volcanoes but it was pouring rain that day so we cancelled it. From what I read, it's strenuous but worth it.
There is a new national park where you can go on safari - we didn't do that because we were on safari in Etosha National Park in Namibia earlier in our trip - but from what I understand the wild life is rapidly repopulating the park and it's a quite good safari.
We really loved Rwanda - outside the capital living gets very basic (no running water, intermittent electricity) but the country side is very beautiful. The country is in general very safe and we saw lots of military police patrolling the streets. That said, when getting off the bus in Kigali, I was retrieving my backpack from the back of the bus from two workers and as I bent over, some kid pickpocketed my phone out of my pocket. I felt it immediately and started yelling - the kid dropped the phone immediately and four Rwandans grabbed him. I didn't call the police - the kid looked terrified - but one of the Rwandans slapped in on the face a few times, yelled at him and let him go. My daughter said that the kid was probably terrified he was going to get beaten - there are strong societal peer pressures to behave. So if you go the bus station, or anywhere with crowds, mind your belongings!
posted by bluesky43 at 4:58 PM on March 2, 2018
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posted by Pantalaimon at 10:20 AM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]