Rwandan Excursions

While in Rwanda, we try to offer interesting excursions for our staff when they are not working.  Kim Harmson, volunteer does an awesome job of communicating with tour companies and drivers months before we leave Spokane.  Someone just aptly named her "Ms Fun and Games"! Her work definitely allows us all to have more fun and enhances our cultural experience while we are in Rwanda.  Here are our excursion options:
See the gorillas in the wild in the Volcanoes National Park. Take a 2-hour drive north to the park, meet a guide and porters and hike to where the trackers find a gorilla family.  Sit and watch them eat and play for 1 hour (or follow if they move on)!
A Day in the Life: travel about 1.5 hours south of Kigali, meet a Rwandan woman and her family. Work alongside her as she would normally spend her day: tilling the fields, hauling water, attending to her children, cooking and join her for lunch.  Fascinating conversations were had through an interpreter.
Akagera National Park: travel by car 2.5 hours east to the wildlife preserve and see many native animals in the wild
(hippos, giraffes, antelopes, zebras, water buffalo, chimpanzees etc) This year one of the two lions that were recently re-introduced was spotted!
Mountain Biking with a Team Member of the African Rising Cycling Team: this year 9 of us took a small bus 2 hours north near the Volcanoes National Park to ride mountain bikes with Refiki and Rodger from Team Rwanda as our guides. What a day! We took single track trails and rutted, rocky dirt roads through many villages and were constantly mobbed by thousands of children waving and smiling.
Coffee Plantation:drive 2 hours to see how coffee is grown and processed.
Genocide Memorial: There is a very well done, sobering memorial in Kigali
Lots of shopping in the markets and at our favorite shop keeper, Abraham!

Refiki, team Rwanda

 

Mountain Bikers

A Day in the Life