Sunday morning. I woke up 5.30 by the sound of birds singing. The sun has already risen and sunlight was coming through the opening between the curtains. It was our first day in Kigali. Although I wished my sleep was a bit longer, my mind was fully awake and hungry for action.
I sat at the balcony table with a steaming cup of coffee and started making plans while enjoying the magnificent view in front of me. I grew up with a similar view (only the sea was missing here) and the thought that this will be now part of my everyday again made me feel good.
Rwanda is known as the country on thousand hills, and this can be easily seen from many viewpoints in Kigali. It reminds me a little bit of Plovdiv: a very vibrant and culturally rich city in the south-west of Bulgaria that is also known as “the city on the seven hills”. Now imagine Plovdiv but on 15 hills (if not even more; I don’t really know the exact number).
Our first to-do on the list was grocery shopping so we headed to one of the local supermarkets. I intend to dedicate a special post to this topic; for now I will only mention that grocery shopping here is a kind of experience on its own. We didn’t realize that in the beginning but after a few weeks we understood what our friends here had been telling us.
While driving to the supermarket, I was trying to memorize streets and other city landmarks but because of the hills I quickly got confused so I gave up and just continued enjoying the views from the car. In fact, I was able to enjoy the views only because I was not the one driving the car. The traffic in Kigali is not so intense (cannot compare to Moscow at all); however, it requires a lot of attention from the driver due to the swarms of mototaxis riding between cars. Not only that but moto drivers are often seen undertaking sudden U-turns in the middle of the street or talking on their mobiles while moving.
Mototaxi is probably the most common means of transport in Kigali. Although I was told that hopping on a mototaxi could be very dangerous, like everything else forbidden, I can’t help thinking about taking a mototaxi next time I need to quickly get somewhere. It really looks cool (especially if there is a woman on the back in a bright colorful African dress and a head-wrap on top), and I actually see a lot of foreigners zipping around on the back seat around the city. Soo, I HAVE to at least try it out once!
One of the teachers at my kids’ school gave me an advice how to pre-test a driver’s reliability before getting on the motorbike. He would always catch up a moto which is driving on the other side of the road. If the driver takes a sharp turn without checking the traffic in both lanes, the teacher would turn him away and look for another one. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
A funny fact about the motorbikes in Kigali is that most of them come from the same manufacturer and in red or yellow colors. That’s the third largest two-wheeler manufacturer in India – TVS Motors, and the brand of the motorbikes is Victor GLX. Interesting how long will the status-quo remain unchanged…
Because of the uneasy traffic we preferred to leave our driver do that for us, at least until we get used to it. Now, a couple of months later, I can say that cruising along the newly paved or asphalted streets and enjoying the nice views from the top of the many hills can be just as fun as the fast drive on a highway somewhere in Europe. And as our driver said, you can even get a nice African massage while driving up and down the unpaved roads:-)
Another thing that keeps you alert while driving is the people walking along the streets and ON the streets, including mothers with babies with heavy fruit baskets on their heads. True, the maximum speed allowed in the city is only 40 km/h; yet, even at that speed there are small accidents every day (mainly involving a motorbike). The streets get particularly busy during the peak hours, when there are as many cars on the road as people going to work, to the market, to school, including me and the kids:-) After 5 years of 3-hours daily-commute in Moscow, and before that 5 years in Sofia, where I was mostly using a car or city transport, I am now absolutely enjoying our 10-minutes-walk to school every morning.
Our first day in Kigali ended up on one of the thousand hills, in a very nice place called Pili-Pili. I don’t need to mention about the view, right? 🙂 During our short trip back in June, Peter and I came here for lunch and we liked it a lot – there is a kid’s area, a pool, a bar area and some relaxed comfortable spots to simply chill out.
This time we came with the kids for dinner and experienced the place from a different angle.
There was a DJ playing contemporary African music (was sooo cool!), a lot of nice people, delicious food and drinks – all the necessary ingredients for a great night out!
When I switched off the lights that evening I had a long list of things to do and places to visit for the next few months. And a smile on my face…I was so grateful (thank you so much, Peter!) for the opportunity to make all these experiences!
End of Part 2.
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