Whilst I was in Rwanda I deciced to pop over to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I had been planning on going whilst in Rwanda and want to check out the security of the country before I went. I meet 3 American girls who were quite keen on the idea and we reserched the security system and although every government website told us not to go we spoke to locals and they said we would be ok, so we decided screw lets do it and we took a caculated gamble.

We organised for a taxi to pick us up at 10 from Gisenyi in Rwanda and take us to Goma just the other side of the border and in the DRC. The taxi driver did this quite regulary and assured our saftey in Goma. The taxi was $15 for every 30 mins with the drive. When we got the border we passed the Rwandan side with ease and then our taxi driver escorted us into the office of the DRC border side as he knew the guy working there. We got our visas within 5 mins and it cost $35 for a single entry and we had to show our yellow fever jab certifacate.

We jumped in the taxi and headed off around Goma. Goma itself is a city covered with lava as the volcano erupted in 2002. The country has been in civil war for the past few years and gorilla activity in the area and the country has been common although not so much in Goma.

Whilst in Goma driving around I did feel on edge in the taxi, although it was probley my consicus telling me about everything that had happened in the country before. I had only ever really experienced this feeling before the first time is driving around the bad parts of Joburg.

Goma itself felt very dark due to the volcano leaving traces of lava everywhere which made it really intersting, there was also a huge UN presence in the town and we saw aid vehichles everywhere. We were the only tourists that we saw in the city on the day we visited which was actually really nice and we definatley felt like we were not doing the norm! We were stopped by a police officer who our driver knew and once he saw me he spoke in bad French and tried to ask me for money, I looked blankly at him and preteneded I did not know what he was talking about, but our driver gave him a dollar and we were away. Corruption is bad in africa but I got the feeling more here especially according to the driver.

After a few hours of driving around we headed back to the Rwandan border and crossed smoothly with no problems.