Hi I'm Danny! I'm travelling around the world! Follow me.
Hello everybody! It's been a little while now since I've posted on here and I've been on some incredible travels throughout Africa. This year was an absolute highlight - I got to witness mountain Gorillas in the wild!
I remember growing up and hearing about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the hundreds of thousands that were killed over this 100 day war. Now, here I was, driving through Rwanda, from Kigali to Goma in the bordering Congo and I couldn't believe it: this was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been.
Rwanda is affectionality known as the Land of the Thousand Hills and it really lives up to this name. We drove up and down endless hills, green forests, and rich agricultural land.
It is absolutely amazing to see how Rwanda has developed and recovered after such a huge tragedy. Out of all my travels through Africa, it is by far the cleanest and most organised place I've been.
Despite the huge differences that once existed between the slaughtered Tutsi tribe and the Hutu (government backed tribe) things are clearly different now. If you ask someone today which tribe they belong to, they'll all answer the same way: I'm Rwandan.
As we approached the border I was thinking about the corruption I'd seen in Zimbabwe on my last visit - road blocks set up to stop cars and ask for money. Rwanda had been the total opposite with friendly and welcoming locals and officials. Going into The Congo I could feel the mood change.
As soon as we entered The Congo one of the immigration officials stopped a friend I was travelling with to ask for 70$ for an incorrect Yellow Fever certificate. After hours of arguing it was down to 30$ and we were on our way. This was the SAME building we had entered in Rwanda!
This corruption is certainly one of the many issues that face Africa, but to be honest I quickly forgot about it - here I was with a real chance to get up close to an animal I've dreamed of seeing for over 10 years.
