Kigali day 2

Waking up on our second day in the Elevate Suites and both now feeling back to full fitness we decided it was time to try climbing another mountain. Luckily for me this one only stands at just over 1800 metres and requires no overnight camping. In fact Mount Kigali can be climbed in just a couple of hours which suited us fine.

After a morning of making arrangements for our next few days, including hiring a car, the car arrived. Although it wasn’t the newest or smartest of cars it was 4 x 4 and was relatively clean, nothing was actually hanging off and at 200 dollars for the week was extremely cheap.

We loaded in what we thought we might need and set out for Rob to practice the unique driving skills that are needed in Africa to avoid all the other two legged, two wheeled, four legged, four wheeled, crazy and sometimes apparently suicidal road users that crowd all levels of their roads.

Although we had no sat nav and no service to get any on our phones we had downloaded clear instructions from my phone and screen shot them – what could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, the aforementioned road users lived up to their craziness and within about ten minutes of leaving the hotel we were the car behind a crash between two motorbikes and a pedestrian. We tried to give those involved a few seconds to pick themselves up and remove their belongings and vehicle parts off the road but soon realised this isn’t the Rwandan way. We did see all four of those involved get up but then amid shouts and blaring horns realised that we were the perceived problem and had to move on. Rob carefully picked our cars path around the strewn debris before continuing slightly shell shocked, on our way.

About forty minutes in (to a twenty two minute journey) we realised that none of the instructions, I had carefully screen shot from my phone, corresponded to any of the road names of present day Kigali. We reverted to plan B, Rob’s gps on his phone. This proved much more effective and within twenty minutes we were parked and on our way. Within forty, the beauty of the small mount, the cheerfulness of the school children accompanying us as they made their way home and the singing and sounds of celebration from the local church had made me almost forgot our directional disagreements and Rob’s harsh words 🤣 and start to enjoy the climb.

Despite the intense heat we had a lovely walk up the mountain admiring the views and the teenagers who lived near the top and just took this daily commute in their capable stride.About half way up I joked with Rob that I couldn’t wait for a cold drink at the bar at the top. Bearing in mind that we hadn’t found cold drinks barely anywhere in the whole of Uganda and there seemed very little on the mountainside apart from lots of very pretty bungalows nestled amongst the trees this seemed highly unlikely.

Our hopes rose however when we were overtaken by a young man carrying three crates of beer and soft drinks on his head. Rob and I looked at each other hopefully and continued with increased vigour.

The views over all of Kigali at almost every point in the climb were spectacular and my photos really don’t do it justice – you’ll have to come and see for yourself.😊After a couple of very short stops (I said I needed to take pictures of the scenery but we all know that’s an excuse to catch my breath – you’d need to too if you were married to the human equivalent of a mountain goat) we reached the top.

The views, as promised, were even more beautiful – especially the one below.There was a bar with unbelievably cold and refreshing drinks that lifted our energy levels and our spirits even higher.We spent a happy half an hour enjoying the rest and refreshment before realising that we needed to get down and if possible avoid rush hour. Although I’m not on Jen’s scale (you know what I mean Bennett’s) of nervous passengers, the earlier accident had definitely taken its toll and getting back to the hotel as quickly and safely as possible was a clear priority.

The walk down was swift and uneventful apart from the bonus company of several monkeys who’d come out to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.

We arrived back safe, well, still talking and ready for a good nights sleep ahead of the next days adventures.