Day 15 Friday, January 26 Arrival in Kigali

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Available until Feb 26, 2024

by Henry

Today was almost entirely consumed with travel, starting with our midnight arrival to Cairo International Airport. Our first flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was less than four hours, but we were loaded onto the same size plane that is usually used for trans-oceanic flights. Addis Ababa is a much larger city than I appreciated prior to landing there for the layover. Ethiopian Airlines has a near monopoly at Bole Airport, filling nearly every terminal gate. 


Looks like the entrance to restrooms at Bole Airport, but actually are separate entrances to prayer rooms for men and women.


Our next flight to Kigali was delayed, so we ended up with a 5 hour layover. The initial views of Kigali are completely opposite from the Egyptian desert. Green rolling hills and red dirt.


After retrieving everything from baggage claim, bikes and bags were loaded onto trucks, and we were bussed to the 2000 Business & Leisure Hotel. Having spent three weeks in Egypt, the cleanliness of Kigali streets and boulevards was eye-popping. Lush green landscaping abounded. There wasn't trash blowing across road lanes. Traffic was busy, but flowed smoothly. Motorcycle taxis comprised at least 50% of the traffic. The city is crowded, but does not have the same mad crush of humanity seen in Cairo. The hotel was very modern and up-to-date.


View from our hotel room. Kigali is situated at 1570 m elevation, roughly the same as Denver.


Those of us who arrived in the second wave were tired, but we got down to business – we unpacked our bikes and reassembled them to open up more free time to explore Kigali the next day.

After walking to a nearby cell phone service provider outlet, Linda got a physical SIM card. This was a protracted process, requiring her passport and what seemed like 1,000 computer clicks. Her Sim card was USD $4 for 30 days and 7 GB of data. My phone is newer, and only operates with eSIMs, so I bought mine online. 


We were all tired after that excursion, and settled in for a family-style Chinese dinner at the hotel. There were two live musicians playing classic American pop hits.


After dinner, we retired early.

A few final thoughts on Egypt:

It has an amazing history. In antiquity, it was a relative superpower. The impressive pyramids, temples, statuary, etc still standing today were created on the backs of untold millions of man-years of slave labor. The scale is hard to appreciate until you are standing within.

Their society has challenges. It remains a developing country. Their infrastructure, and ability to maintain it, remains far from standards we are accustomed to. The poor are barely scraping by to make a living. There are so many underemployed men and women. It is not the easiest country to visit, if one doesn't have a working knowledge of Arabic. Cultural differences from the West abound. The ever present police are more a curse than a blessing. Many Egyptians literally see us as the walking personification of Western money and act accordingly. Today, it's hard for me to imagine making a return trip, even though there is so much more that could be seen.

Tomorrow, will see Kigali in more detail.