So I’ve finally arrived in Rwanda after the longest 4 days I’ve had in a long time. after 23 hours of flying I landed safely in Kenya, where I quickly paid for my visa ($50 USD) and grabbed a taxi to Nairobi International Youth Hostel where I found Kate (my co) and Sabrina (my trip leader last year). The little room they had booked had 4 beds, and 4 guests, so I blew up my air mattress and lay down on the floor. At one point we decided it a good idea to open the windows because of the heat and justified it by saying “if there’s no light, mosquitoes won’t come”… Within 15 minutes the sound of a mosquito buzzing by your ear was heard every couple minutes and we realized the room was full of them. In an attempt to hide I burrowed as deep as I could in my sleeping bag and wore a buff over my face, however at +25 Celsius and no wind it was like trying to sleep in a sauna. My indecision between the trade-off of mosquitoes or a sweat box coupled with jet lag led to a sleepless night where I lay awake until the first minute the sun rose where I left to go for a walk and grab a cup of coffee.

After everyone was awake we used the day to buy cell phone credits, check out mathare, and procure supplies (ie. bread, water, PB&J) for our 14 hour night bus we’d be taking from Nairobi to Kampala, Uganda. When we returned to the hostel we found out that it had gone bankrupt, and will be closing in 2 weeks time, the problem with this being that we had 2 booking for 15 people in June and August and chances of finding another hostel that price was low. Anyway, we had an Ethiopian dinner with Jonah Brotman (co-founder of OG) and took off toward the Easy Coach bus station, which despite out bartering efforts we had to pay full price. We were forced to get the back of the bus, which included free of charge the ‘African Massage’, essentially bouncing 1-2ft off your seat about every 15 seconds as it drives down pothole filled dirt roads for 14 hours. As one can imagine, it this difficult to sleep under the circumstances. Although it seems kind of fun for the first while you realize how brutal the ride your taking really is about half way through, then finally after a while you can only sit back and laugh, because really, what can you do?

We spent the day in Kampala organizing bookings for our stay in June and August and made use of some free wi-fi. Did I mention we purchased a ticket for another overnight bus ride, this time 9 hours to Rwanda? Well we did, and once again we were off at 11pm. This time however, 2 Gravol afforded me close to 7 hours of incredibly disrupted sleep but after paying our entry visa’s we arrived into Kigali at 9am and checked in to St. Paul’s Cathedral where I’d finally sleep in a bed for the first time since I’d Ieft Canada on the 25th. But hey, TIA.