Day 111: Umuko Lodge

We're staying another day! It's cozy here. And quite exciting to linger in a place that's primarily a destination for (wealthy) Rwandans.

It's our last full day in Rwanda, as even Akagera National Park is too expensive for us (3 days/2 nights with our own car $340 plus camping $100-150).

So it's a good opportunity to note down some things about Rwanda that haven't been mentioned so far.

There's an incredibly heavy police and military presence. For one thing, we're traveling in an authoritarian country. For another, there's a problematic relationship with Burundi and recurring conflicts with Congo, Kinshasa. Rwanda is accused of supporting the M23 rebels. In some places, we had to go through a scanner and have our bags x-rayed. At Toyota, our car was checked from underneath (like they used to at the Berlin-Trabzon airport), and at the memorial in Kigali, the military guard wanted to empty the entire camping cabin. But we refused.

Bicycles are the common means of transport here, even across the country. Guests are provided with a padded seat, which is removed for transporting goods to protect it. And it's truly incredible the amount of cargo that is carried uphill and downhill by bicycle. In Kigali, the main means of transport is the motorcycle.

The range of goods is rather modest, in our opinion, but there is no shortage, as far as we can tell. And: There are no plastic bags! Only paper bags! And if a country like Rwanda can do it, why can't others?

Every little piece is used for agriculture; we sometimes suspect cooperative farming, including the operation of the mills. Eucalyptus is a commercial tree, and so the scent is very pleasant everywhere. Cleaning days, for example, when the stormwater drains are cleaned, also seem to be communal. Overall, it's pretty clean and well-maintained here. But everything is mostly manual labor; we hardly see any agricultural machinery, and if the road isn't being built by a Chinese consortium with appropriate vehicles, then people are sitting on the ground hewing small stones from large rocks.

We've already written about the genocide. During our trips across the countryside, we saw many memorials to keep the history alive. It should be added that, in addition to the Tutsi (wealthy, more than 10 cows) and the Hutu (not so wealthy, fewer than 10 cows), there was also the Twa group. These are those who had nothing because they lived in the bush, referred to by Europeans as Pygmies. And if you're interested, you can try to trace the history of the genocide online – difficult and complicated.

We're enjoying the day off and have ordered fish for this evening.

Oh yes: The Umuko Lodge is named after the tree with the magical red blossoms.

And: We meet Patrck, who's out with his hiking buddies. He's happy to try out his respectable German with us – he spent about nine months in Germany in 1994 during the civil war.