Shopping and driving, Kigali to Kamembe

Before leaving Kigali, we went into the city centre to look for some fabric from a "hole in the wall" shop - it was no more than a metre wide, but was stacked floor to ceiling with fabric and plenty of purchases were made (pre cut 3.6m lengths were 5,000 Rwandan Francs = $8)

We left Kigali just after 10am for the 250km drive to Kamembe, in the south west of the country near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The main roads in Rwanda are very good, but travel isn't fast because of the number of pedestrians and bicycles on the road, the mountainous terrain and a speed limit of 60kph (40kph in the city). The police are very active with traffic patrols and speed cameras.

Just outside of Gatagara we took a 1.5km detour into the village to visit a pottery outlet, local health centre and grab a cache... or it may have been the other way around ☺

We visited the King's Palace Museum in Nyanza and did a guided tour of the traditional and modern palaces, before heading on to Butare for a very late lunch - by the time we left it was 5.40pm, so the remaining 3 hour drive to Kamembe was in the dark... which made the pedestrian dodging even more difficult!

Stayed: Emeraude Kivu ResortRead more