Northern Province

Today, we picked up a car for our Rwandan Road Trip. First impressions are that the roads are amazing. We've been used to driving in Uganda, where good paved roads are few and far between, and traffic police lurk around every corner. Here, though, the roads are immaculate, the speed limit low, the drivers patient and polite, and the views are incredible.

The road network winds its way up, around, and across the many hills that litter Rwanda. They call this the land of 1000 hills, and climbing to the top of each one, you're rewarded with panoramic views in every direction. It's a beautiful country.

We're heading north, to Lake Ruhondo, one of two "twin lakes". Its sister lake, Burera, sits high above Ruhondo, separated by a steep hill which is only a couple hundred metres long. This geological formation means that there's a big hydroelectric dam on the shores of Ruhondo (the lower lake). It's that power station that is our destination. From there, we're picked up by boat and ferried to our accommodation, which sits on the end of a peninsula jutting out into the lake.

The views from the lodge are stunning. Directly opposite, towering over the lake, are three of the five Volcanoes making up Volcanoes National Park, sitting like some ancient city skyline.

We head out for a walk with two of the hotel staff, who are there on internships learning about the tourism sector. We walk around the lake, through little villages, until it's too dark to see, then walk back in the pitch black.

It gets chilly here, so we wrap up and sit around a fire after dinner. The fire, strangely, has been built in a wheelbarrow which is just plonked down in the middle of the bar area, which itself is decorated with Christmas lights. It's different, but I wouldn't describe it as cosy.

The next day, we head up to Lake Burera to have a look. To get close to the lake, we have to drive up a vertiginous dirt path, before crossing a narrow, rickety, wooden bridge over the lake run-off channel. It's a little like an Indiana Jones film, and we're watching the wheels out of the car to make sure they don't fall off the side.

After looking at the lake, and watching the locals fill their boats with big yellow jerry cans of local beer, we head back down, and off to Volcanoes National Park.Read more