Friday 15 October 2010

Day 29 - Transit to Nairobi

We were up for another long day of travel. The day started with a nice breakfast at the hotel in Musanze. After breakfast I set about photographing the local birdlife including the black kites (above) circling on the thermals across the road from the hotel & the weever birds in the hotel gardens.Sharing the garden with the weever birds were regal sunbirds (below).We packed our gear into the car & spent half an hour or so checking out the local markets that had just about every type of produce you can find in the area along with other goods like hand bags, shoes, clothing and many other household items.
The next couple of hours were spent driving back to Kigali. We took in the scenery on the way which mainly looked a lot like the farmland pictured above & below. Its tough terrain, but the locals find ways to overcome the difficulties. Most of the trees are Australian Eucalypts that grow rapidly in the warm climate. They're used for everything from firewood to bridges.
We eventually reached Kigali. Robert gave us a more detailed tour of the city this time. What I noticed was the wide range of housing. At one extreme was the mud houses built side by side & at the other end of the spectrum, the massive gated mansions of the foreign diplomats & some of the politicians. In the middle, the government is busy building a huge number of mid range houses.
After another nice lunch Robert dropped us off at the airport. We said our good-byes & went through security. Kigali Airport isn't what you'd call a big airport but we were able to sit & watch tv until we boarded the flight. A clear example of the recovering economy of Rwanda is the shiny relatively new Canadian built jets own by RwandAir (below). Our plane even had a Canadian captain.
The flight took us East over the rolling hills then flood plains of Rwanda before flying over Lake Victoria. I knew Lake Victoria was big, but until we'd flown over it I had no idea quite how big. It was getting dark by the time we landed in Nairobi (and it gets dark very quickly near the equator). The taxi ride to the hotel was interesting. It became abundantly clear that Nairobi was a busy city. Even in the seemingly endless traffic jam there were locals coming up to the car trying to sell us things.
We were glad to finally arrive at the hotel. We cleaned up & had dinner at the hotel. We spent the rest of the evening washing our clothes in the room. It would be our last opportunity for the rest of the trip.