This is the story of my trip to Rwanda and the last leg of my 3 week vacation…. It is also the story of the first…. and hopefully last time I get peed on by a monkey. If that didn’t grab your attention and entice you to keep reading I’m not sure what will!
After my Drakensberg experience we headed back to Joburg to catch my flight early Thursday morning to Rwanda to meet up with Patrick. Being picked up at the airport was like a scene out of Rags to Riches… I was traveling with my backpack and wearing jeans and a t-shirt and the driver from the Serena gave me a double take and asked “You’re Mrs. Scoville?” “Yep, that’s me!”
Rwanda, 20 years ago was not somewhere you would have thought to go and unfortunately I feel some people still fear this beautiful country. The things that happened there 20 years ago are terrifying and heartbreaking and one of the worst genocides in World History to date. But if you visited Rwanda today, other than the memorials and personal testimonies you would see no trace of this world tragedy. It is absolutely stunning! “The Land of 1,000 Hills” is what they refer to it as, filled with palm trees and green mountains everywhere you look. What won’t you see in Rwanda?? Plastic bags! They banned them from the whole country and the result? An immaculate clean and beautiful country with hardly a bit of trash to be seen!! The people are friendly (even outside of the Serena Hotel where I was asked how my day was going at least 25 times!) But out of the 6 African countries I have now visited I have to say Rwanda is definitely in my top 2! Swaziland will always be my happy place though….
So I arrive at the Serena in Kigali to find that Patrick was still at work but because he is the best husband in the world he booked me an afternoon massage until he returned! After my last post about my 14km hike from H-E- double hockey sticks this was basically the best thing that could have ever happened to me…. ever! So after my massage and a nice lunch and a drink at the bar Patrick finally returned! We went out to dinner at the real Hotel Rwanda and had a nice quiet evening. The next morning I spent some time at the pool while Patrick finished up work and we headed off to Volcanoes National Park. Once again we dropped the ball on Gorilla permits and instead settled for Golden Monkey Trekking!
So we set off early Saturday morning and headed into the Volcanoes which actually compared to chimp trekking last month was exceptionally easy! a short 20 minute walk and there they were! Like always Patrick took some amazing photos!
Funny looking buggers aren’t they???
You mean to tell me all these funny looking creatures paid money to see us?? Where’s our cut???
So all is good and fun in the world, Patrick is off taking pictures and as usual I’m wandering off like a space cadet looking at all the monkeys running all around me until it started to rain…. but as I am looking across me at one of the rangers I realize it was not raining over her head… and then I made the mistake of looking up… and then back down in horror and then across to the ranger again who is now giggling and it hit me…. I just received a golden shower from a golden monkey… And then followed all the comments…. “It means you are lucky!” “You have been blessed by the monkeys…” yea yea yea a.k.a “Glad it peed on you and not me!”
Num Num Num 
Whatever you do…. DON’T LOOK UP!!! 
Baby monkey!! 
Afterwards we headed back up to our meeting point where Patrick kept going on and on about how cool the monkeys were but wished it was more of a challenge to find them blah blah blah “Amanda, whats wrong with you?”
“I don’t know… maybe you didn’t hear me when I said I just got wee’d on by a monkey!!!”
After the “extra golden” monkey experience we knew we had some time to kill for the rest of the day so we decided to go explore some caves that were advertised. Now I did have a caving experience a couple years back in in Swaziland so I imagined it being similar and for some parts it was….
So I recall the helmet with the head torch….
But I surely do not remember the need for a hair net, the mask, latex gloves and armed guards! What the heck did we get ourselves into?????
All in all it was a pretty cool experience and thankfully didn’t need to make use of the guards…
Sunday morning we woke up and while I was eating breakfast and Patrick had gone to pack the car I saw something really big fly by! Now I have started to have a weird interest in birds lately mainly because I’ve turned it into a game and I have realized there are a lot of interesting birds in this part of the world and the really nerdy part of me got really excited whenI looked out the window and this is what I saw….
The Crested Crane! Uganda’s national bird!!! So pretty!! I was running around the breakfast room frantically because I was so excited and Patrick wasn’t there and he was the one that had the camera and I thought “No one is going to believe me if I don’t have proof!!!!” and then Patrick comes walking back in to save the day! Thankfully, his nerdiness got the best of him too and he was also a little excited! What a great way to start our day!
We spent our last afternoon in Rwanda going to the Genocide Memorial which was very nicely set up but not for the weak hearted. I do think it is a must see if you are visiting to pay tribute to lives lost back in 1994.
All in all I would say Rwanda was a wonderful place to visit and would definitely go again!!!
The Traveling Scarf 