Amongst other things Rwanda is a country full of steep hills and fertile verdant valleys. So as you are driving through the countryside provides an ever changing array of tea plantations, bananas, pineapples, and groundnuts, with a myriad of volcanoes in the background.

First stop was the capital Kigale which surprise, surprise is built on 7 hills. We stopped at a camp run by a charitable foundation called “One Love” which was set up to minister unto those maimed in the genocide. It is run now by these same people so many are limbless and most of the others were terribly scarred by the events of 1994.

Since its all for charity we were happy to stay there and buy a load of souvenirs, mainly carvings by the disabled.

Next day we went to the actual memorial to the genocide and a harrowing experience it was too.

We tend to get sanitised pictures of events in the West with neatly pixellated photos that might be too horrific. They don’t do that here so we were assaulted with pretty horrific images, and in some cases actual video footage of the slaughter..

It was a powerful documentation of what happened in Rwanda as over 1 million souls were brutally murdered in orchestrated mob violence.

Significantly however there was no explanation as to why it happened or how the state machine could persuade millions of Hutus that it would be a good idea to slaughter 1 million Tutsis, most of whom may have been your next door neighbour or at least living in the same village or even married to your sister.

There was plenty of blame laid at the door of the colonialists and the UN, but no blame laid anywhere else. A strange phenomenon but maybe that’s how the Nation copes with its collective grief.

Anyway, on to the magical trip to see the mountain gorillas. Janet and I were both spellbound by the proximity to the animals and the fact that they accepted human presence so easily.

It was a bit disturbing really as you are not allowed to touch them (bit like Stringfellows). They however are more than happy to touch you and include you in their games. Getting out of the way was often the most difficult part of the trek. Fortunately the Giant Silverback did not participate in these frolics as I for one would have evacuated my bowels had he taken any kind of interest in me.One adolescent male however did take an interest in Janet,and decided to playfully charge her, as the silverback would real enemies. Sadly Janet in a panic stopped filming this noteworthy incident and was eventually saved by a Ranger who gave the gorilla a quick clip with a big stick he had just picked up.. 

We had one hour of just looking, and at no stage were either of us bored for a second.although after this we were quite wary.

Although the cost was ridiculous it was one of those trips you would have paid almost anything for.

Its now off to Tanzania, and since the journey is across from West to East we dont expect much civilisation until we get to Dar Es Salaam which is about 5 days journey