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100days1000hills-blog · 6 years

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Ah, home

We decided to take a trip. I did some heavy research and made a full itinerary: 3 days, two nights, 5 cities, 5 buses, two hotels, 4 tourist hotspots, and a ferry. I’ve never known myself to be a planner but I was very proud of myself and this itinerary.

We were offtrack before we left the house. I have found myself to wake up whenever I need to but some others need a lot of coaxing, especially when you need to leave the house at 5am. As I helped to wake up my fellow interns, get myself ready, and prepare the house to be left for 3 days, I managed to scour for accessible road trip food and only found eggs. I threw them in a pot and brought them to a boil before I packed them in a paper bag. We left a half hour later than I had intended because there was a lot of misunderstanding: good thing I accounted for an extra half hour in my itinerary.

Arriving at Nyabugogo bus terminal at around 5:45, we had 15 minutes to find our bus port, buy a ticket and pack ourselves onto a minibus. A minibus is essentially a large van that has around 24 seats but can "fit" up to 35. Luckily, our bus wasn’t packed so Diah, Michael, the 8 boiled eggs in my backpack, and I climbed aboard.

All I remember is taking a time lapse out of my window (I rested my phone on the glass) when I half-acknowledged how fast we were driving and asked myself how trucks were still passing us. What happened next helped to change the course of our trip: I felt the bus swerve, we hit something and skidded to a stop. To some, this may not sound too scary but trust me, when you are scaling the side of a hill that may as well be a mountain on a bus with 25 people in it on a thin road with people walking on either side, I promise you that your heart will feel as though it wants to escape your chest. Diah and I made eye contact beside each other during the accident but our heads whipped back to see if we hit someone. No. Turns out, a truck cut us off so badly that our bus driver had no other choice but to swerve and when doing so, he hit a curb of sorts and the back right tire split open. We filed off the bus.

I chose this moment to whip open my handy-dandy bag of boiled eggs and offered some to my fellow interns. After their jokes and astonishment that I had even found time to boil eggs, we cracked them open and joined the crowd observing the bus driver change the tire. One girl who I’d say looked about 12 was very inquisitive and stared at us with curiosity. I offered an egg to her and she gladly accepted.

I didn’t even realize that she was struggling to crack it until Diah mentioned it so Michael took it from her and i knocked it twice with my knuckle and it cracked. After an hour, we were back on the road only long enough to be pulled to the side by Rwanda police. We didn’t know why everyone was being pulled off the road but we soon came to find out: Tour de Rwanda.

We were on the side of the road in Ruhango for about 3 hours. I realized early on that this wasn’t going to be a short stop so I hopped off the bus and went to explore with the itinerary a distant memory. I passed a group of local boys who asked me where I was coming from. I said Kigali but they saw through my façade and said, “No. Where are you coming from?”

“Canada.”

“What is your name?”

“Keyona.”

“That is a beautiful name. You are welcome to Ruhango District.”

My heart welled and I replied, “Murakoze chane. Witwande?”

I saw a smile spread across his face and he told me his name.

Back on the road, we arrived to Nyanza soon after and ventured to King’s Palace. We managed to get some lunch and a tour of the King’s modern and traditional houses. Our guide informed us of several decades of Rwanda’s monarchical history and made the experience very interactive.

(I have just decided to do a separate blog post detailing my experience with the sacred cows.)

We left Nyanza and headed to Huye. Long story short, we went to buy a bus ticket for the evening but found out the buses from Huye to Cyangugu were sold out until the following morning. That moment, we hopped on a bus to Kibuye (a day early) and my friend Willy asked me where we’d be staying once he found out we were going. I told him that I would let him know once we figured out our accommodation and 5 minutes later, he told me that he called his friend, a manager at a hotel, and told him to set aside 3 beds for us. Willy. WILLY. We headed to our accommodation.

(I will also write a short post about Kibuye)

Our way back to Kigali was just as ambiguous. Michael went to get our tickets and when we arrived at the terminal... there was no terminal. The bus was over a half hour late but we were pleased when it came because it was a large, Greyhound-esque bus that was nearly empty. Halfway to Kigali, I was convinced I was going to be sick. How was I getting bus sick when I was on a boat for 3 hours? It was probably because of the speed we were travelling paired with hilly terrain. Somehow I fell asleep and woke up to the business of Nyabugogo. Ah, home.

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