The Finnish woman (the slow one in particular) was INFURIATING. I pretty much channeled my mother and expressed my rage. I was just really getting annoyed, and knew that if I was assertive and said something, they'd split up the group. And I was right, because once I vocalized my concerns, the other guy chimed in, and they did split the group. Honestly, this snafu didn't even register on my radar once we got to the gorillas.
They are just so big and majestic. You're soooo close to them, it is really incredible. One legit brushed up against me, I couldn't believe it. We got to see pretty much all the age ranges, and even the three week old baby I posted the picture of earlier.
Our group was the Titus group. They split off from another group awhile back, and Titus' son is the silverback who is the leader now (the one I posted a picture of earlier, but here's another one):
He was HUGE. Sam likened him to king kong! Sam took a bunch of videos on her camera that I stole, so I'll post to fb or show them to people when I'm back. Sam was super stoked to go to the gorillas, and it's not that I wasn't excited but I didn't really know what to expect (she had done more research about the different families of gorillas and whatnot). But the experience blew me away, it was so awesome.
After, Jean-Louis drove us to Gisenyi, on the shores of Lake Kivu, and just across the border from Goma in the DRC. It would have cost about $200 US to cross the border, so we were content to merely look across the many rope borders they have. There are like 2 legitimate border crossings, and then there's just like streets that go from Rwanda into the DRC and there's just a rope and you're not supposed to cross. Some of these crossings have a guy with a gun there. Jean-Louis said that the kids can cross there on their way to school. I guess some of the kids end up going to school in another country, which sounds pretty crazy to me, haha.
We found a place to exchange money by the border, so Sam was able to convert some Tanzanian shillings and have some money! Yay. Then we went to our hotel, the Palm Garden Resort. It was a really nice place. Our room was about 100 meters up the road from the main compound, but it was actually really nice. Nice hot showers, and a cool common room next to our room that had a fire going in the fireplace for us when we got back up there from dinner. View of Lake Kivu from the resort:
It was really nice. We got up MaD early today to catch our bus to Kili, and from there Sam went to the airport to continue her airline nightmare. Her flight got messed up again, and apparently she's connecting to Kili through Nairobi and won't get back to Arusha until about 11 tonight. Ugh.
I headed to the Hotel Des Mille Collines (hotel of 1000 hills, Also is rwandas nickname/slogan), the hotel that the movie Hotel Rwanda is based on (the hotel where they filmed that is actually in South Africa, not Rwanda). You can pay to go in and use the pool, so I swam and hangout and had lunch poolside. It was just a beautiful place and the weather was actually really nice.
The pool (it says Hotel Des Mille Collines on the bottom of the pool). This pool apparently kept the 1200 people staying here during the genocide hydrated. And I have swum in it.
Me by the sign. The security guard was super cool and insisted don taking these for me haha. He also made me take pictures of him guarding and gave me his email so I can send them to him. Then I took a moto (what they call a boda boda in Rwanda) to the airport, and flew back to Entebbe, where I am now. Staying at the Entebbe Backpackers hostel where I have been watching football with a bunch of people, using the Internet, and just had a hot shower.
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