On the Road Again

Well, after about a month and a half of a hiatus the more intensive travel schedule is finally ramping up once again.  And, of course, that means it’s time to warm up the blog again for those of you up for the punishment of reading it. 

My hiatus was spent almost exclusively in the Pacific NW with one long weekend in Idaho (is that the NW?). Most of the time was spent in the company of a lovely young lady who, apparently, has questionable taste in men.  Fortunately, she has better taste in friends and was kind enough to introduce me to many of them through various trips to cabins, weddings, birthday parties, etc.  When I was able to break away from the feminine wiles, I did manage to see my son and his wonderful fiancé a couple of times as well as get out on the motorcycle for a trip or two with my good friend.  My son is a fantastic cook by the way – no reflection on me, just a humble brag.

Less fun activities for the down time included getting a new crown put on as well as getting the vaccinations for my upcoming travels.  Vaccines included yellow fever, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis, hepatitis A/B, and meningococcal meningitis.  Not much fun but it did set me up for the next leg of my travels – Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.

My trip started today with a midday flight to Kigali, Rwanda with a brief (~2 hr) layover in Amsterdam.  The initial leg of the flight was with Delta Airlines and the second leg was with KLM.  Both legs were largely uneventful and long.  Sadly I find it harder and harder to sleep on flights as I get older so I was exhausted by the time I landed in Kigali at 7:30 PM on August 14. 

Unfortunately, there were still a couple of things to accomplish yet before I could fall into bed.  First, get an eSim card for my phone.  There is the option of picking up an eSim in advance but I opted to grab one when I landed.  The carrier that appeared to be most prevalent in Rwanda was MTN and you can purchase an eSim at a small stand set up outside of airport doors.  I opted for a two-week plan with 30GB of data which was $20 US.  And they were kind enough to install it for me.  You will be required to let them take a photo of your passport as well as a photo of yourself. 

At the same small stand there was also a representative of Eurocar and I worked on renting a vehicle at the same time as I was working on the eSim card.  I don’t know how many vehicles the actually have available at any given time but there are a number of people who are willing to rent their private vehicles out through this rental company.  I ultimately ended up with a small Kia SUV that was well used (170,000 km and going strong).  The process for renting the vehicle was pretty seamless – valid driver’s license and a copy of your passport (of course).  No international driving permit was required contrary to the AAA site.

For both the eSim and the rental car I ended up paying cash because their credit card machine wasn’t working and the two ATMs on site were either broken or out of money. 

Finally, around 9:30 PM it was off to the Judith Home Fika Café for a much-needed sleep.