14th – Rwanda

For those of us wanting to go to Rwanda (17 out of the total of 22) we were to get ready for breakfast at 0530 and leave soon after which in this case, due to a minor delay, resulted in a departure of 0620.

The theme of the day might have been depressing but Rwanda is stunningly beautiful. 

We went south, crossed the border to Rwanda without any issues and continued onward to Kigali and started the tour at Nyamata Church, a church that during the genocide in 1994 had seen the killing of up to 10000, with 5 times that number been buried here, mostly in mass graves. The remains are still being recovered and set aside and cleaned before given proper burials. That meant when touring through the church we were faced with piles of skulls, bones and clothes, none of it cleaned. The light mood from yesterday’s gorillas was pretty much instantly killed and set the mood for next few hours.

An hour at the church later we continued to the Genocide Memorial Museum which had a thorough walk through of the genocide and what happened, both domestically but also the international reaction on the lead up to and after. If was very informative but also soul crushing, especially when reading survivors’ statements. Overall, though, the museum as a whole was very good and highly recommended if you’d ever find yourself in the area.

From there we had a late lunch at the hotel known from the movie Hotel Rwanda. When arriving in our daily tour clothes it made me feel horrible underdressed considering the standard of the place, but that was quickly forgotten due to the delicious buffet. The plate dispenser did give us a bit of entertainment; the spring under one of the piles of app. 10 plates backfired so suddenly the plates flew out and high enough to hit the ceiling before coming crashing down. Luckily no one were near enough to get hit but the noise was absolutely fantastic.

The memorial outside the hotel.

From there we went back north back into Uganda and our camp. As the museum visit seemed to have taken a bit longer than planned we weren’t back until around 2100.