Day 243 / 8

Date: 11 December 2022
Sleeping location: Centre Saint Marie, Kibuye, Rwanda
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 60 / 15273 / 436
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1100 / 125800 / 7800
New friends: 3
Day in three words: Kiviews are Kiveautiful*

*Sorry

I was awoken from my morning post-sunrise doze by a tiny bird settling on the window ledge outside and making weird robot noises. It didn’t seem bothered when I opened the curtains, or cleared the condensation right next to it, or started taking pictures of it, and just carried on making its robot noises before getting bored and flying away. I liked its style. It turned out I got a free breakfast with the room, which was kind of awkward because it was just me and the owner lady, but she was nice enough. Before I left she did show me a website for a logistics company and told me to tell all my friends, so maybe she thinks all mzungus are really into logistics.

The sun was shining today and I was in a much better place to appreciate the beautiful, quiet, smooth road which wound through endless steep green hills with distant views of Lake Kivu far below. I decided to do a half day and stay in Kibuye, which was by the lake and seemed to have a lot of accommodation options. This meant the day just involved a big descent, followed by big climb, followed by another big descent, followed by a little bit of up and down. This was all pretty straightforward and I ended up arriving into Kibuye a little after noon.

Rwandans are a bit weird and I’m on the fence about them. They seem shy and incurious and mostly just stare at me silently, or talk about me amongst themselves, unless they want something. When I'm tired, as I was today thanks to robot bird, I don't have the energy to make a connection happen myself. It makes me feel like an outsider and a bit lonely, and I miss the exuberance and openness (and good English) of Ugandans. 

The route into Kibuye was absolutely gorgeous as the road began to hug the lake and made for some amazing views. On the outskirts of town I was startled to see a man throwing rocks at his bike, apparently in an attempt to fix it. I was then equally startled to see a mzungu on a heavily loaded mountain bike coming the other way. He clocked me too and I crossed the road to say hi. He was Henry, an exuberant American living in Dublin who had cycled from Cape Town and was ending his trip in Kigali in a few days. He recognised my name from the C2C whatsapp group and we said we’d keep in touch as we’d likely be in Kigali around the same time. Whilst we were chatting another two mzungus on lightly loaded mountain bikes went past and we exchanged hellos.

Henry and I parted ways and I went into town to look for somewhere to stay.. The first place was a beautiful beachside resort, but way too expensive, and whilst I was considering my options the two mountain bikers appeared in search of a drink, so I sat with them and we chatted for a bit. They were Dan and Colm, Irish brothers doing the Congo Nile Trail bikepacking route over five days. They were fun and heading the same way as me, and also maybe in Kigali at the same time, so we swapped numbers too.

After they headed off I rummaged around a little more for somewhere to stay and eventually found a little Christian centre, with a reasonably priced room featuring actual hot water and a balcony to tinker with Maggie on, plus an onsite restaurant so I didn’t have to stray far. I immediately ordered a mysterious item from the menu for lunch, which was handy because it took about 90 minutes to arrive and turned out to be lots of small fish in tomato sauce. The fish were so small, and the wait so long, that they may actually have bred them from scratch when I ordered. For the rest of the day I did some admin, Maggie maintenance and general relaxation, including a dinner order that took even longer than lunch. The next section of my route, to Butare, is surprisingly only 200km, but equally surprisingly** packs in 5000m of climb. A couple of chunky days lie ahead.

**Or not, given Rwanda’s terrain so far

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