Blog

August 13 – 24, 2026

Bamboo Ecotours with Tom, Jane and Sue. From the four corners of the United states — California to South Carolina; and Minnesota to Florida.

DAB to ATL (1-1/4 hours); to Amsterdam (8 hours) to meet up with Sue; then on to Kigali, Rwanda, Africa (8 hours)

Last summer Tom and I decided if we were ever going to climb a mountain to see the gorillas it was going to have to be soon since we weren’t getting any younger.

Gate1 Travel was too expensive and too long, I decided to find a travel company from Africa. I received some quotes regarding a trek in Uganda, my physician pointed out Uganda’s website which stated ” if you arrive in our country without a yellow fever vaccination, he will provide you with one upon your arrival”. This scared the bejesus out of me. The last thing I want is to receive a vaccine in an African country! And since a pharmacist friend of mine warned me not to get a yellow fever shot (since I was over the age of 60), I trust her judgment. Apparently the vaccine can cause permanent and continuing neurological impairment.

So I set my sights on Rwanda, a country that doesn’t require a yellow fever shot. In hindsight, it was a brilliant decision because Uganda has fatal cases of Ebola and Rwanda has none.

I sent out the call to all my friends in the event they wanted to join us on the gorilla trek and Jane and her friend Chris agreed to go. Along the way chris backed out; and Sue decided to join us.

We were a Motley Crew from all corners of the United States.

Sometime at the beginning of this year word arrived about the ebola pandemic. We made our final payments for the tour with fingers crossed, not knowing if we would be going, or even if we would be getting our money back.

Tom had the final say two weeks before we left. His niece is a teaching nurse somewhere in Africa and has friends located in Rwanda. With her assurance it would be safe for us, we finally realized we were getting to go see the gorillas just weeks before we left.

It was quite a big plane to Amsterdam.

Note the extreme jog at the top of the plane route. The pilot saw or was told about a big storm we were heading directly into and they took a big jog to avoid it. They told us we would still get some turbulence because we were at the edge of the storm but thankfully it didn’t happen.

It was dark when we arrived at the Kigali Airport. Tom had paid $150 to get his Rwanda Visa before he arrived, since he was arriving so late at night. Sue and I sailed right through the process at the airport and paid $50.

Guide, Brian, was there with a big sign with my name on it, we got some Rwandan money and drove to our hotel, Eagles View Lodge. It was about 25 minutes from downtown way up the mountain, but the view of the city at night was fabulous.

At the hotel two dogs ran up and sniffed us and walked us into the hotel. It was a very strange setup in that Sue and Jane’s room was across a small hallway to get to their bathroom. And Tom had to walk through that hallway to get to his room, or otherwise walk outside and all the way around to the front door of the hotel.

We had a lovely balcony and my only complaint was my room reeked of a pesticide smell. I figured better the smell than the actual pests.

I proceeded to kill a mosquito and was worried it was an omen. But it wasn’t and I only saw one more mosquito on the entire trip.

Brian picked us up in a bright yellow Jeep and we had a 45 minute drive up the mountain to the Eagles View Lodge.

We knew we were in Rwanda when we saw the giant statue of a Silverback mountain Gorilla advertising the Silverback Mall.

The View of the city of Kigali was breathtaking from our hotel.

I had a very nice room but I was afraid to go out on the balcony, because wild African animals would attack. Little did I understand that Kigali’s just a big city like anywhere and wild animals did not roam freely. Even our little hometown will have a coyote eat one of our pets or a stray black bear in a tree. But it’s unusual.

Very eclectic things around the hotel. This was the gym that was available — an exercise bike that had a plastic bag over it. When I asked what the Jeep on the top of the building was for Brian told me they use it for the spotlight. Too funny.

We went to the Rwandan genocide Museum and I did well until about 3/4 of the way through when I just couldn’t hold back tears. A half million Tutsi’s were killed by their friends and neighbors, the Huti, because of the skewed media and propaganda, telling the masses that the Tutsi’s were subhuman and had to be eliminated.

When I walked into a room full of photographs of the slaughtered (often by machetes or a shot in the head) provided by their loved ones, I couldn’t even focus on the photos for fear of bursting into tears. And then there were rooms full of information on the slaughter of other people like the Nazis, the Armenians, the Khmer Rouge Etc. We supposedly currently have the United Nations that will step in to stop these future atrocities but so often they do not. (Especially if the country has no assets, rare earth minerals nor resources such as oil.)

Many of the half million bodies have been moved to this place and are buried on these grounds.

It has been 32 years since the genocide began. The museum had video testimonies of some of the children who were the only survivors in their family who told of the horrors and devastation they saw. But they survive and thrive and are starting new families of their own.

I wanted to know who were the Tutsi’s and who were the Huti’s but we’re told nobody has these monikers anymore; they are all Rwandans.

And then we went to the market. We were told to stay close and yet, we did not. One person would turn down the wrong aisle, one would stop to shop, the one would get lost. Herding cats comes to mind.

And the vehemence we would run into from these African women selling their wares was overwhelming. I bought a sari from a woman and another woman was incensed because she fad showed me her sari first. She insisted then that I buy something else; and of course, it was nothing I wanted.

And the stuff they were selling was just crazy. Some of the shelves of stuff looks like the shelves in my garage when I was a landlord.

Their largest crop is Irish potatoes so there were bins and bins of them. And ladies with sewing machines would take your measurements and sew you an outfit and have it delivered to you the next day. We had no time for that, though.

More sites of the city. Cars are a luxury and much gets carried by hand or bicycle or scooter.

It was so apropos to stop at the Hotel Rwanda for dinner since the manager saved over a thousand Tutsi’s lives’ by inviting them to stay in the hotel and protected them from being slaughtered.

We promised Brian we’d pay for his meal, but apparently the hotel comped him, which worked out well for all of us.

If we hadn’t come in a day early and saw what we did, we never would have fit it all in. Our trip was Non-Stop, go, go, go and we are never arrived at our hotels before dark.

This was the actual tiny hut Dian Fossey lived in while she learned about them, and was making friends with the mountain gorillas.

A short walk up the road took us to a women’s art colony, where they made beaded things, baskets, clothes and some artwork. This necklace was handmade and I paid $40 US dollars for it. Worth it, I believe.

We stayed at this beautiful establishment, maybe it wasn’t so late when we arrived here. I love a chocolate on my pillow.

These boys looked a little perplexed when we got so close to them with our car. They were hauling all those bananas on their bicycle. And children seemed to be able to walk down the street without parental supervision while working hard.