RWANDA
“I
n Rwanda, you’re either going up, or you’re going down,” jokes my guide, Alex Kagaba, while driving into ‘the land of a thousand hills’. As we rise and fall down burgundy-red roads lined with purple jacaranda trees, it seems to be one of those rare travel phrases that actually rings true. The same observation might be made about the country’s own journey. Mention you’re going to Rwanda and people will say one of two things: gorillas or genocide. Happily, the Rwanda of today is so much more than both of those, with huge progress made since the horrors of 1994.
For those that want to understand
more about the period when 800,000 Tutsis died at the hands of Hutu countrymen, there are memorial museums. My visit to Murambi, home to a technical college where 65,000 perished, is made even more eerie by its serenity today, surrounded by birdsong and village chatter. Driving away, I ask Alex – a man in his 60s with the exuberance of someone much younger – if he was affected. He says he was lucky to escape into Burundi with his mother, father and young child. But he says: “My sisters and their husbands didn’t...” If you’re thinking Alex, and Rwanda, hasn’t moved on, though,
you’d be wrong. Today, the country is among the most progressive in Africa on certain issues. Every child receives a free education up to 18, and in 2009 the government introduced ‘Umuganda’, a designated day each month when locals gather to clean up. “We treat Rwanda like our personal property,” explains Alex. “We have pride in it.” As a result, Rwanda is free of the rubbish that blights other countries. Better still, it feels safe and the locals welcoming – contributing factors to a 20% rise in UK visitors last year.
New arrivals Big-name hotels are arriving too, including the landmark One&Only Nyungwe House. Located in the southwest, it lies within the Nyungwe Forest National Park, a vast area where two of the continent’s great rivers – the Nile and the Congo – converge. This tea-plantation-turned-luxury- hotel opens up a region previously overlooked. Before, travellers ew into igali, went to see the gorillas and left for a safari in Kenya or Tanzania. With One&Only on the map, Rwanda-only itineraries become viable. And so they should, because the gorillas aren’t the only primates demanding attention. The Nyungwe National Park is home to 500 chimpanzees too,
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OPPOSITE: FIRST ROW: One&Only Nyungwe House; chimpanzee trek; SECOND ROW: A cultural dance performance; writer Laura Holt with a gorilla; tea picking at One&Only Nyungwe House; THIRD ROW: group of local children; FOURTH ROW: Volcanoes National Park; Lake Ihema Credits: Shutterstock/Marian Galovic; Annabel Illingworth; Rupert Peace
64 ASPIRE FEBRUARY 2019
aspiretravelclub.co.uk
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