Hello,

Its Eastern Sunday and I write this from the terrace of the GM’s lodge  in Gisenyi on the Lake Kivu.

This is really Paradise, the quietness,  its nature, the birds , absolutely fantastic and I enjoy every moment of it.

I am very thankfull  to those of the brewery that made it possible for me.

Yesterday, Saturday I visited the brewery here and it recalled many memories from the time in 1991 that I worked there.  Since than I visited he brewery once a year when I was the Accountmanager of the region.

Of course, some things have changed but not too many since competition is there now and margins are smaller than before.

Riding over these roads is a treat.  From Kigali I had 155 km through the mountains with continuous bends and hairpins.  Fantastic for a bike rider.  This is the ultimate.  No potholes and hardly any traffic.

The scenery is often breathtaking with the high hills and very deep valleys, banana and tea plantations.

It is all so perfect without the usual rubbish ,dirt and plastic that one meets in the other countries, here none of it.  Even the villages and cities are clean like it must be.

Plastic bags are forbidden since a few years and it seems to help.   Kenia has just started the ban.

There is not much to report since all goes smooth and I enjoy doing nothing.

There is a new road to Kibuye , a 85 km south from here along the Lake and so tomorrow I will do a tour to there.  Seems a perfect road.

When  I worked here we went there with the brewery boat to waterrski in the bay of Kibuye.

Yesterday I cleaned my airfilter for the first time since Cairo and that was very neccessary.  The desert sand from Egypt and Sudan was there , fieis and other debris.  I should have cleaned it earlier but was too lazy .

Fortunately I installed another washable type, a K&N filter.  Expensive but worth the investment since I did not spot that anything had leaked  into the engine.

I cleaned it all out and washed the filter with Dreft, dieid it and resprayed it with a  special sealant that I brought along.

I leave here on Tuesday 3rd April and will park the bike at the TD ’s house in Kigali and go from there to the airport and head for home .  Will return on the 7th of May and hope the rains will have reduced so to face the bad stretch of road again going to Dodoma in Tanzania .

From there it will be Zambia, Botwana and finally South Africa.   Wiil , possibly, be in SA around 20th of May.    Goes all too fast.

Because everything is so good  and perfect here I have nothing further to report and will be back again around the 7th May.  Will let you know by mail so you can pick up reading again.

Cheers,  Paul.

01-04-2018 om 15:33 geschreven door Paul Kemp  

Hi everyone,

First of all I have to mention something that I should have mentioned before.

Since the blog is a public site and anyone can read it I sustain from making statements or opinions on politics, economics, environment etc and I do not put in anybody’s name to avoid offending someone or a local body and end up being accused of it . 

On Mondaymorning I took off to Kigali and the roads were very good so did a 650km till Ushirombo, a hole in the countryside with a Kigali Hotel but no services.  Beer was there so one worry less but no restaurant. Asked the girl that was there to cook for me, just a chicken with rice and she did.  Gave her money and she took off to somewhere, possibly a market if any.  After some time she was back and I heard a loud chicken noise in the kitchen so she went for a life one since frozen  Brazilian hormone chickens have not yet arrived in this place.  The noise was quickly done and an hour or so later I had my chicken with rice and Beer.

I slept reasonably well and had no mosquitos since I sprayed the room intensively.

Next morning I took off at 7 AM for another 400 km to Kigali of which still 230 in Tanzania.

The road was perfect and I saw signs of STRABAG who are road builders in Africa and I thought this can be a good or a bad sign.  They have either finished the whole stretch or only partly.

Unfortiunately it was the latter.

Had 130 km perfect road, 20 km of road works and 80 km of horrendous damaged road that I could not go faster than 10 to 20 km /hr and the bike almost died on the way.  Potholes in all sizes and shapes and after 10  AM one does not see them anymore since the sun goes straight up and there are no shadows.

You just hit them and wonder whats wrong with my eyes, I just do not see them.

After 4 gruelling hours with pain in my left arm due to constant use of the cluthch I arrived in Rusumu, the border with Rwanda.   

All went well apart from the fact that my East African visa for 3 countries had expired, they said, since I went from a member state = Kenia  to Tanzania, thats not and on to Rwanda.  Had to buy a new one for 100 dollars. So what , on such a trip spending money for what you need muust be the least of ones worries.

The road to Kigali started off quite well and I felt a happy man after the road I had previously.

However it did not take 30 km and there were the roadworks again but , fortunately it was dry and thus no mud.

This lasted to entrance Akagera park where Bralirwa grows maize and that I visited twice , also with Linda.

They have nice tented lodges where you are woken up by fisheagles in the morning when they start greeting eachother or they might have a quarrel like we also do sometimes.

So that was another 30 km of difficult road and I wondered if I had not locked up myself in Kigali since the heavy rain month will be April till half May.  Of course it can vary and also in intensity.

I have to ride these same roads back again , a 1000km stretch to Dodoma to get to Zambia.  No other road for me.

To let the rains pass by I extended my stay at home and thus Iwill fly home on Tuesday 3rd April and come back only on Monday 7th May.  Ample time to revamp my cooking skills and might do a stroll with the Morgan to France / Spain to see some friends and watch   nature waking up after the winter.  

Hope rains will have lessened and roads are not too muddy when I return here.

Unfortunately it is  also the road from where all goods to Rwanda go over.  I saw hundreds of lorries and especially all fuel for Rwanda comes from Tanzania over that road.   They damage the roads and make them worse when it rains.

Anyway I will see what happens and go from there.

Arriving Kigali was like homecoming cause I always liked it since I was here in 1990 as DT of Gisenyi brewery.  That place  at Lake Kivu is like paradise but rather lonely. We were 3  expats in the brewery and there were some sisters and fathers + 5 Belgian paratroopers  in Gisenyi.  Also had a curfue from 6  PM to 6 AM  and 200 soldiers around  the brewery to protect it from  a possible rebel attack who lived on the slopes of the vulcanos and killed so many gorillas in that time.

The brewery was  a strategic object since it generates a large portion of the internal revenu through the excise duties.  When the government was short of money they undiscriminately increased these taxes.

The GM always had a lot of work to settle such problems.

So I got to Kigali and it was very hot and I did not feel like running in dense traffic with a fire under my butt.  I had identified a hotel downtown .In fact,  I wanted to stay in the Mille Collines where I Aaways used to stay for the brewery visits but is now above budget.

However I could not find the intended hotel and drove up and down  the streets and while doing that I saw the Mille Collines.  Said, what the heck, I do one night there and will see from there what to do.

Got to the counter and they offered a promotion for almost half price hence it is not just 1 night, No, I stay here till I go.   Like the place as ever.

Have not yet been in contact with the brewery so do not yet know if they could store the bike during my absence.  Since it rains evreyday I prefer it to be inside.

Tomorrow I will see a former collegue who I know from Ethiopia.

I have another option and that is a underground carpark next to the hotel.  Went threre and they will charge just 80 Euros for 33 days.  Is dry and guarded , a good alternative if need be.

A visit to Rwanda cannot go without a vist to Giseny and the brewery.  Hope the rains can allow me to go on Friday and return Monday.  Although rains are not the problem.  Have had enough of that in Europe and when I lived in Africa.  A good rainsuit keeps you entirely dry but for me its the state of the road that counts.   I will check tomorrow.

Its now Wednesday so I might texst again when in Giseny on the shores of Lake Kivu with a nice grilled chicken and a beer.  Eating such chicken at the beach ( yes there are sand beaches ) used to be a challenge since there are big birds ( like Hawks ) flying around and they will snatch your meat from the plate if you loose a bit of attention by turning your head.  They dive and bye bye chicken.

Giseny is on the border with the DRC and on the other side  is the town Goma that was not so long ago ( approx 15 years ) almost completely covered in lava from the nearby vulcanos.  I thought from the Nyiragongo.  The lava covered the airport and ran through the mainstreet to the lake where it started cooling down which took months.

It is a magestic sight when you sit on the veranda of the house ( all along the shore ) with the vieuw on the vulcanos = Virunga park and they are working , lightening up the sky when they spit.

On these vulcanoes are the famous mountain gorillas and I visited them with Linda in 2012.  Fantastic experience but nowadays rather pricy.

May be I will stay in my former house, now a guesthouse like  Linda and I did in 2012 and 2014.

Also there in the trees there were , or maybe still are, fish eagles.  However during my time in 1990 I was warned not to go into the garden without a cap or hat since the male of the couple would attack me and seriously scartch my bold head.   Only for bold men since one of my former collegues, also bold and thus called Kojak, was an amateur  photographer and when the eagles had offspring he went up a ladder to the nest to photograph the small ones.  You can imagine that papa did not like that and did not allow him by attacking him.  From that moment all bold men be warned.  Do not know if  they are still there and alive since I talk of 1990.

I now go to cover my bike with its pyjama that I brought along.  Did not cover yesterday with the hope that the rains would  clean the bike a bit from the worst mud but I think the mud is stronger than the rain.  Its the red mud that is used for brickmaking so gets hard  when it dries.

Thereafter I go for a beer.  Its beer time !!!

Cheers,  Paul.

28-03-2018 om 16:47 geschreven door Paul Kemp