What I learned from Africa

Now that I’ve had a few weeks to reflect on my trip to Central/Eastern Africa (Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda) and Ethiopia, I thought I’d share some of the lessons I learned. Here’s my top 10 list of the things that will always stay with me from Africa, indelibly etched in my memory: Don’t like coffee?…

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Day 4 – Visiting the Gorillas

Today was a big day. We got up at 0600 for a quick breakfast and then a drive to the Gorilla meeting place to receive a briefing and get paired off with other travelers for the trek. Robert explained to us that typically there is a slow, medium, and fast group – we urged him…

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Day 3 – Butare to Kigali to Ruhengeri

We started out on the road early, around 0800 since we had a big driving day ahead of us (about 5 hours) to transit the entire South-North expanse of Rwanda, through winding, mountain roads, not to mention several stops along the way. Today was the big day to really explore Rwanda’s history – from pre-colonial,…

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Day 2 in Africa – Bujumbura to Butare

On our second full day, we spent most of the time in the car on winding mountain roads, crossing from Bujumbura (Buja), Burundi into Butare, Rwanda. Before we left, Leslie captured this stunning photo of Vienne from the hotel, who toured with us the previous day – we later emailed it to him…

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