Cheeky monkeys and chilled milk

Today we left the hostel and started our adventure to northern Rwanda to see the reason we came to this country in the first place – the mountain gorillas!  Our driver/tour guide picks us up from the hotel bright and early in a nice SUV.  He introduces himself as Rama, and seems to be a nice enough fellow.  We ask him what the itinerary is for the day, and he tells us that we’re going to drive straight up to Musanze - the second largest city in Rwanda, located in the northern-most province, where we will be staying for the next 2 nights.  We ask him if he could accommodate a couple requests along the way, most notably asking him if he could take us to a milk bar.

Yes, you read that right, a milk bar.  Apparently that’s a thing here.  He isn’t familiar with the term, so we look up the local name for it, and he chuckles and tells us we can go find some milk.  I’m not actually that much of a milk drinker, but I’m really curious – what are these milk bars and what types of people visit them?  I have to find out.  He says he doesn’t know of any places in Kigali off the top of his head, but there’s one on the drive, so we agree to stop there.

The drive is similarly beautiful to what we saw yesterday – rolling hills, plenty of fields planted with various crops, and lots of people in vibrant colors going about their daily lives.  We roll down the windows, and Rama puts on some Rwandan hip hop music, and we all enjoy the drive.  As we climb higher and higher into the hills, I’m disappointed to see that a fog has descended, so we can’t enjoy what must be stunning views.  Oh well.  We stop at a lookout and take a photo anyway.

You can kind of see how pretty it was - right?

Sandra and I have been noticing for a couple days now just how clean of a country Rwanda is.  In other African countries, it’s extremely common to see piles of trash everywhere, but everything here is pristine.  We even see people in vests weeding the side of the highway as we drive.  We ask Rama about it, and he tells us that the government has instituted a policy of mandatory community service for every household.  On the fourth Saturday of every month, everyone in the country takes a few hours and cleans up the country.  They pick up trash, garden, and otherwise tidy things up.  What a great idea!  And even better – it actually works!  Peer pressure from neighbors and/or the government means that people actually show up to do this.  Apparently the fact that Rwandan people are generally rule-abiders helps as well. 

If I lived here, I'd want to keep it pretty as well

About a half hour outside the city, Rama spots a monkey by the side of the road and pulls over so I can take a photo.  When we get out, we see that it is not one monkey but at least 15 – a family of them who are hanging out in the grass and trees by the side of the highway.

Why hello there

A few villagers carrying baskets of bananas (on their heads of course) stop to look at the monkeys with us.  The issue was that whenever I tried to get close enough to get a good photo, the monkeys would run away, scared.  Rama came up with a great solution to the problem – he bought a bunch of small bananas from the women standing next to us and started throwing the bananas at the monkeys.  They went nuts!  One in particular was a greedy little pig, so he kept inching closer and closer to be able to intercept the bananas that Rama was throwing to the other monkeys.  

Mine?  Mine?  Mine?

I was able to get some great shots of these guys.   They put on a good show for us: sometimes chasing each other to get the bananas, other times standing on two legs like a person to eat the banana they had claimed as a prize.

  

Awww he thinks he's people!

And the fat one kept stealing the bananas from the rest of them.  We stayed and watched them for about 10 minutes until we ran out of bananas, and then they lost interest in us and started moving more into the woods.

The Banana Grabber!  (Arrested Development, anyone?)

One thing about Rwanda that’s worthy of comment is the foliage here.  It’s an extremely diverse range of plants, and Sandra keeps exclaiming that sometimes it could be mistaken for Australia (where she’s from).  This is largely due to the great number of eucalyptus trees, which are growing everywhere.  Apparently some Australian missionaries imported this species to Rwanda about a 100 years ago to help combat problems of erosion, and the trees took root and spread like wildfire (haha I think I’m funny).  It’s true that certain patches of the landscape here could easily be located in Queensland.  But at the same time, there are also patches of acacia trees, bamboo shoots, and banana trees.  It’s an eclectic mix, but lush and beautiful at the same time.

Our next stop is in a small village.  Everywhere throughout the village are signs giving praise and accolades to a man named Sine Gerard.  Rama explains that Mr. Gerard is a local businessman, who came from very humble beginnings and has risen to be one of the richest men in Rwanda.  He has used his wealth and success to invigorate the economy of the village where he grew up, and so now everyone is employed at his factories and stores.  He started out as a restaurant owner (making donuts), so many of his products seem to revolve around food, but apparently he has expanded into other industries as well.  It is here that we stop in a restaurant for a glass of milk.  There are photos of Mr. Gerard on the wall there, showing him receiving some kind of international award for community service.  He is obviously beloved by the entire village.  The restaurant is nice – white tablecloths and everything.  Since it’s 10 in the morning, the waiter thinks it’s pretty hilarious that we came in to order some milk, but he obliges anyway.  He goes into the kitchen and comes back with two glass mugs and a yellow plastic bottle that somewhat resembles a gas can back in the US.  From the large bottle, he pours a white liquid into a mug.  It resembles milk, but seems to be much thicker than the milk that I’m used to drinking.  Seeing how generous the pour is (and frankly uncertain of what exactly we will be consuming), Sandra and I tell him that we’ll just share one glass.  The milk turns out to taste like an unflavored lassi drink, or perhaps a very thin Greek yoghurt.  It’s tart and full of milkfat, and it turns out that I actually like it.  I could imagine myself turning this into a fruit smoothie for breakfast or something.  Sandra and I decide that it could use a little sweetening, so the waiter brings us some local honey, which tempers the tanginess and makes it easier to drink (whereas before we could only sip it).  I’m so glad I randomly read a blog entry about milk bars!  This restaurant clearly isn’t a milk bar – it serves food instead of purely dairy products – but otherwise I never would have gotten to taste this delicious Rwandan milk!

Does a body good

We wander downstairs toward the car and are enticed by the smell of an open barbeque.  Around the corner are a few kiosks where cooks are grilling beef brochettes, corn on the cob, and potatoes appear to have been seasoned and baked and/or grilled.  It smells DELICIOUS, but neither of us are hungry.  Sandra gets a grilled corn because she simply can’t resist, and I get a sambusa, remembering how delicious the one yesterday was.  It turns out to be a good thing that we had a little snack because we wouldn’t end up getting lunch until late in the afternoon.

Hot potato!

We continue with the drive until we get to Musanze, but continue driving because apparently we have lunch plans somewhere.  We turn off the highway and onto a bumpy dirty road, headed toward destination unknown.  Finally we stop at a lake, and get out of the car to admire the view.  Rama explains to us that this is actually one of two lakes, which are side by side.  One of the lakes is natural, and the other has been created by a hydro-dam, which supplies electricity to the entire province.  

Twin Lakes sounds like Twin Peaks...do you think I'll run into David Lynch?

The dam is made evident by the HUGE exposed pipe, which carries water from the natural lake to the other.  Apparently they’re called Twin Lakes because of the symbiotic relationship between them.  We snap a couple photos, careful not to photograph the area where the soldiers are patrolling the dam (because I don’t want to get shot today).  

My pipe is bigger than your pipe...

Rama points out the restaurant where we will be having lunch – it is a set of circular copper roofs located across the lake from us, and looks absolutely lovely.  We then drive around the shore to the dam itself, which apparently is where we will be embarking onto a boat, which will take us across the lake.  

Like Washington crossing the Delware...except not at all

The boat is basically a large motorized canoe and reminds me of the boat I took down the Amazon in Ecuador last year on my Random Walk.  It takes about 15 minutes to get across to the other shore, where we are greeted by the staff of the restaurant, clad in crisp white button down shirts and black ties.  It turns out to be both a restaurant and a hotel, and is absolutely beautiful as a venue.  There are manicured gardens surrounding the restaurant patio, but the best view of all is of the lake.  We have a panoramic view of the lake, the jungle, and the volcanic mountains in the distance.  Sadly it was still a cloudy day, so we didn’t get the full view of the volcanoes, but what we saw was stunning enough to satisfy me

.

Because without visible volcanoes, the view was basically terrible

We were the only people at the restaurant as far as I could tell.  As is common in Rwanda sometimes, there was no menu, but instead they just told us what they had to offer and we either agreed or disagreed.  In this case, they could offer us goat brochettes (kebabs), rice, sautéed greens, salad, and fries.  We tell them that it sounds delicious, and settle in to enjoy the view while we wait for our meal.  In true Rwandan fashion, the meal takes about an hour to prepare, but we couldn’t have been in a more beautiful place to wait.  I was a little nervous about eating goat – I don’t think I’ve ever had it before – but it turns out I enjoyed it!  It wouldn’t be my first choice of meat because it’s pretty fatty, but it’s full of flavor and tastes kind of similar to beef. 

After the boat ride back to the other shore, we get back into the car and drive to the hotel.  The rest of the afternoon is unplanned, since we have to be up early tomorrow morning.  I had some ambitious plans to blog when I got back, but as soon as I settled into my room, I passed out and took a much needed nap.  I really hadn’t slept well either night at the hostel, so clearly I needed it.  I slept from about 5 pm to 10 pm, and woke up cursing myself for letting myself sleep so long.  Oh well – gorillas first thing in the morning!