Welcome to Kigali, Land of No ATM's

Marlee and I in Kigali!

Still bouncing off the walls with the adrenaline from our jump, the rest of the day in Jinga, Uganda, flew by. Meghan and Nelson left to go back to Arusha in the early afternoon, and it was just us four girls left for the rest of our journey! Marlee and I explored downtown in the late afternoon, talking about the extraordinary differences we had seen in just Tanzania and Uganda alone. In Arusha, we usually walked down paved roads, not the dirt roads Jinga had. Jinga seemed to me more of a tropical paradise, more relaxed and less city-like than Arusha. It was really like comparing apples to oranges. The similarities seemed to stop at they are both African countries. The differences were amazing, seeing as only Kenya divided them.

We carefully timed our dinner, making sure we'd be full but not needing to use the washroom during our bus ride to Kigali, Rwanda. We hopped in a taxi just before 11 on Sunday night and went to the bus station. The tv in the station was turned onto Grey's Anatomy, yep I was stoked. This made the 45 minute late bus seem almost enjoyable. We boarded and scrambled to find our seats, but to our frustration they were already occupied by a less-than-willing-to-move local. After several unsuccessful attempts of asking him to move, as these seats were ours and we had the tickets to prove it, (the bus was moving by this time) I went to the front of the bus and got the attendee to help us out. The local begrudgingly was forced to move and we snuggled into our seats.. None of us really knew how safe it was to go to sleep, especially since we hadn't exactly made friends with our seat neighbors.

After a few hours of on and off nervous sleep, the bus came to a halt. Still half asleep, none of us really payed attention to why we were stopped, as this was a frequent occurrence. You can imagine our surprise when we fully opened our eyes and saw that a man with a large gun had made his way to the back of the bus and was standing over us pointing to our bags and motioning for us to open them. Too nervous about what he could possibly do, we obliged. I was mostly just worried about him taking my cameras... I knew I'd be wanting to take a lot of pictures over the next few days. All went well with the searching and after everyones stuff had been gone through the bus was off.

After the most bumpy road you could possibly imagine (all unpaved of course), we arrived in Kigali at about 1130 Monday morning!! Drowsy and a little uneasy to be setting foot in completely unknown territory, we made our way off the bus. Unsure of even where to begin, we figured it would be best to exchange a little bit of money and grab a taxi to a hotel name we had found in Lonely Planet. One of the men who worked at the bus station helped us out big tim, finding us a taxi and making sure we got a decent rate to our hotel.

We all stared in awe as we made our way up the road to Hôtel Isimbi. Rwanda is truly a country of a thousand hills. The city of Kigali, being no exception, seemed to just be one large hill itself! Everything built into its side, and the road twisting around it, the hill seemed to go on forever. We arrived outside of the hotel and walked up to the reception. Because Rwanda's languages are Kirwandan and French, we were at a complete loss in the communication department... I really hate to say it, but maybe I should have payed more attention to Mme Aubin.. That was really hard to even type. We finally got across that we needed two rooms for the night. We got our keys and tromped our way up the six flights of stairs to our humble abodes. Humble isn't quite the right words.. Each room had one double bed and a bathroom, and that was about it. Two of us went to each room and collapsed onto the beds. Knowing we didn't have much time to waste while in Rwanda, we headed into the city to do some exploring about an hour later.

It is the strangest feeling, being somewhere you and those you are with know absolutely nothing about. We had no map, no guide, no clue really. But we did it! Whatever it is I guess....

First things first, we needed money. We found the Bank of Kigali, figuring it was our best bet for an ATM. We quickly learned that all the ATM's in Kigali were down and that we had to go up to the third floor of the bank to have the teller do the withdrawal manually. After talking with some girls who were from Canada and the US and had lived in Rwanda for 7 or so years, we learned that the whole country doesn't take international debit cards. Sweet. I was happy I had my visa. Until I got to the teller and the big fat declined showed up on the little screen. I didn't even know what to do. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and frustration and confusion and all of these emotions that I had no idea how to deal with I just felt like screaming and crying and just laughing all at once. I let a few tears slide and figured I'd just call VISA and find out what was wrong. When I took out my phone to dial the customer service number, of course I found out my Tanzanian SIM card wouldn't work in Rwanda.

Mission number two was to get a working phone. Finding a SIM card wasn't hard, as they are sold on every street corner, and I was lucky to have a couple of extra USD to exchange for Rwandan Francs. I got my phone working, bought a couple of minutes and was set. We found a Mzungu cafe to grab some lunch and were all good. After being assured by the amazing girls I was with that it didn't matter what lunch cost, we were all to order exactly what we wanted. They'd spot me the difference till I got my money junk sorted out. Almost unanimously we ordered big fat bacon cheeseburgers and milkshakes to boot. While we were waiting for our food, the first phone call I made was to my mom.. Looking back on this, it probably wasn't the best decision. At 4am her time, I think the last thing she was expecting was a call from her daughter in Rwanda. It didn't help matters that as soon as I heard her voice I began to ball. Everything I had been feeling for the last few days seemed to just release at the smallest reminder of home. After assuring her I was okay and that we were all safe, we tried to figure out my credit card issues. One phone call to VISA later and I found out I had officially max-ed out my card. Shit.

We toured the city a bit more, then realized we were all too exhausted to appreciate much. We headed back to our hotel to find it had no running water.. So much for a refreshing shower. After a quick lie down, we headed downstairs for dinner. Orange Fanta was once again our savior, and we devoured the food as soon as it was placed in front of us. After dinner, and with much difficulty, we found out the names of the memorials we wanted to see the next day and had some idea of how we might go about getting to them. Off to bed we went, preparing ourselves for the emotional day that we knew lay ahead.