Rwandan Days - Arrival, Friends, Fun and Birds

Rwanda 2025, Week One       

Another Biking Birder adventure, number eight . . . VIII.

Aim is to support PLANET BIRDSONG, wonderful charity that engages young Rwandan people in the fascinating science of birdsong.

 https://www.planetbirdsong.org/

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Also to support ACORNS CHILDREN’S HOSPICE in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, I am once more dedicating my Biking Birder VIII adventure to my little brother Chris who so sadly died fifty years ago, October 31^st.

https://www.acorns.org.uk/

There are links on the right hand side of this page, right underneath the amazing Patch Adams, for you please to give a donation to these two vital charities.

or maybe you prefer here so . . . 

Planet Birdsong donation page

and 

ACORNS CHILDREN'S HOSPICE

Thanks to everybody who gives a donation.

Every donation makes a difference. Thanks.

Tuesday 28^th November

Arriving in Kigali at 7:00am, and after being kept at Visa/Passport Control for some time because I didn’t have Mugisha’s phone number. Mugisha is the CEO of an exemplary Wildlife Tour company that gives visitors amazing wildlife encounter opportunities, including seeing Gorillas, whilst engaging in community projects.

Check out Wildlife Tours – Rwanda via their website. The videos and texts on their website are both fascinating and inspiring. A superb wildlife tour company.

Having met Mugisha at departures, we were soon driving towards his WILDLIFE TOURS – RWANDA offices. Suddenly, as we approached the road where the offices were located, whilst Mugisha was driving along a beautiful tree lined dual carriageway, Mugisha suddenly remembered that he had asked the main Rwandan television company to interview me!

I had had no chance for a wash and shave. I had very little sleep on the plane from Heathrow; my head rest on the screen on the seat in front of me, whilst propped up on my hands.

The TV company crew were waiting for us as Mugisha drove up onto the office’s courtyard!

Bike box found, safely stored in Mugisha’s office having arrived over two weeks ago, I removed the bike and started to reassemble it. The TV crew filmed me as I did so and then interviewed Mugisha.

Into the offices to meet the staff and for a conversation over itinerary, aims and general questions.

The staff were fantastically friendly . . . thanks Kamikaze, Stella, Jeremy, Jame and Ferdinan! . . . something I would get see from nearly every Rwandan met, whether that be on the streets whilst walking safely around all parts of Kigali, or when cycling along the intensely busy streets and roads, or when at nature reserves and in villages. Rwandan people are the most friendly, conversational, quick to smile and laugh people I have ever met!

Mugisha couldn’t have been more helpful. SIM card for Rwanda, sorted. Cash from ATM, sported. Meal, a superb fish, chips, rice and some sort of sauce, sorted.

We had driven to do these essentials into the heart of Kigali, even driving past the famous Rwanda Hotel . . .

 

The roads were busy but wide and very well kept with immaculate tarmac – NO POTHOLES. Hundreds of motorcycle taxis, masses of them. Cars as well, of course and all seemed to be new.

In the road where we first parked up, at a small bank, there were dozens of Rwandans who bustled amongst the cars and motorbikes.

Horrific to see but in a way so inspiring, a young woman walking, well getting around speedily and with amazing skill, on her all fours. A beautiful young woman with such a disability but with the will or the need to conquer the obstacles. No one took any notice of her.

To a modern looking shopping mall for the meal, I wanted to do some shopping myself but was aware that Mugisha would have other business commitments. What a wonderful man to give his time to an almost complete stranger. Thanks, Mugisha.

An apartment above the offices of WILDLIFE TOURS – RWANDA was to be tonight’s accommodation for me, a superb large apartment with two double-bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and large lounge. Cost for the night was 60,000 Rwandan Francs. Might sound a lot, it converts to $40, around £34. Brilliant.

Unpacking my two huge suitcases, both had carried around twenty-three kilograms of stuff, and my eight kilogram rucksack, whilst adding it all to the dozens of cuddly toys that had protected my bike when on transit in the bike box, I eventually got down the steep hill down a narrow ginnel, to an area of tall bamboo beside a reed-filled stream.

A team of yellow Hi-Viz jacketed workers were smashing rocks and creating a pathway. Most of them were young women who worked with laughter, especially when they gestured to me as I sat on a rock watching a pair of the exquisite White-browed Robin Chats displaying to each other.

“Take our photograph,” the gestures suggested. I gestured back No. I don’t photograph people but they seemed to insist and got together in a group.

I lifted my camera and immediately it was like the Monty Python sketch, the Olympic two hundred metre dash for people with no sense of direction.

The ladies scattered, well, all except for one who stood and smiled.

Into the bamboo and birds were everywhere . . .

Back to the apartment, eBird checklist to start my Rwandan adventure,  Three Lifers!

https://ebird.org/checklist/S281842102

Rwanda is going to be the fabulous adventure.

Thanks Mugisha!

Tickle My Feathers