We left Kigali after our 24 hours of luxury at the Serena, another session in the gym and an extensive breakfast buffet which left you wanting for nothing!
Today was culture and history focused with our first stop in Nyanza to visit the Kings Palace - and learn about the Rwandan monarchy which ended in 1959. On the site of the most recently inhabited palace, which was lived in from 1931 to 1959, they are had also constructed a traditional and impressive papyrus palace in which previous kings lived until 1931 - the original position was on a ridge to our right as we faced the newer palace and on the ridge to our left was a newer two storey palace built between 1957-59 but the King died before he could enjoy it. It is now the National Art museum. The new palace design came after the King visited Belgium and realised that Palaces there had upstairs and downstairs where his palace was one storey and built more like a school! Albeit he did have an integral garage for his Volkswagen including a maintenance pit for the mechanics to use to service it!
Traditionally the importance of milk and banana beer was clear by two special houses behind the traditional palace - the house of milk and the house of beer. The former tended by a young virgin who was not allowed to marry and the latter by a young man, thought to have been castrated, and similarly unable to marry. Behind this they currently have a small herd of the Kings cattle - very impressive dark brown Ankole cattle ( today's photo) with enormous horns - apparently when the ladies dance they often make arm shapes to reflect the cows horns. These cows are lovingly cared for and sung to by a couple of herdsmen. Any calves who are brown and white are sold on to keep the herd as pure as possible.
After at interesting lunch in Butare - now renamed Huye - like many towns post the genocide - we headed to the ethnographic museum for a guided tour to understand more about the traditional Rwandan way of life. It dovetailed well with the Palace tour this morning. They have seven museums covering different aspects of life and if all are as clean modern and well laid out as the ones we have seen today they are a real national asset.
Amongst many interesting facts the one that stood out was that by carbon dating iron ore smelters it seems that the Rwandans were probably the first to use iron and make weapons - spears, arrows etc. from it - unsurprisingly this helped the country to grow in size!
Rwanda was larger than today and initially colonised by the Germans but after World War One it was given to the Belgians who having already colonised DRC moved the mineral rich NW to the DRC for easier administration and gave the NE to England,as a thank you for helping them and consequently it was annexed by Uganda.
With our heads exploding with knowledge we went to find our guest house for the evening - the Shalom guest house - a little different from the Serena - but plenty of hot water and a comfy bed. We had to walk out for dinner - trying to get a something vegetarian was tiresome but we got there and I didn't go hungry - even though I had chips and rice on the same plate ( an interesting African staple). We did however stop at Nehemiah's coffee shop on the way back and had very nice drinks to end the day.