A Laid Back Day

Thursday, May 5

Cinco de Mayo Day and no Mexican food!

Breakfast at the hotel was pretty standard - fruit (fresh pineapple, passion fruit, tree tomato), toast (really just bread), Spanish omelette, and ginger tea. 

This hotel has nice hot showers so we enjoyed that!

Joe and I have 2 chairs, a little love seat, and a coffee table in our room so we all sat around until almost 11:00 doing nothing but talking. We don't usually make it past 9 or 9:30. 

The girls' room faced the back of the hotel. Katherine looked out the window to a little area behind the hotel only to see a man bring three chickens to kill by chopping off their heads. Then he proceeded to pluck the feathers. Yes, that was someone's lunch or dinner right there. 

Taxi to a coffee shop which is owned by two women from California. Rachel got iced coffee, K had a smoothie and Joe ordered black coffee. We sat and talked for more than an hour before deciding to order lunch. R had a salad, K had a chicken sandwich, Joe had fish tacos, and I had a beef and carmelized onion sandwich. Of course, we had fries. Fantastic food. 

The coffee shop is in an old colonial house. They grow a lot of their own vegetables. 

Called a taxi to drive us to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo where I got out and had my picture made in front of the Congo sign. 

My grandfather was a missionary to the Belgian Congo in the late 1890s so at least seeing the DRC  is very important to me. The DRC is very unstable and not safe so venturing across the border was not wise. Rachel was saying that a friend of hers who has traveled extensively around the world said that Goma, the border town here, is extremely dangerous. 

Got back in the taxi and went to the public beach. We had thought about swimming but it was a little too cool for that. 

Looking across Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu is the smallest of the African Great Lakes sharing borders with Rwanda and the DRC. The land sticking out on the right is Goma. 

A 20 year old guy started talking to us as we were sitting by the lake. Rachel and Katherine got suspicious of him and his friend as I talked. They were afraid the guys would grab my little bag or my iPhone and take off so we ended the conversation and walked down the beach. 

Next we took a taxi to Tamtam, another public beach which had tables and chairs. Tour boats that take people out for a short ride were coming and going. Some folks had a paddle boat they rented to play around in. A waitress came by to get drink orders. Very relaxing place. 

In an effort to reduce the weight of my backpack, I didn't bring any cards along in this excursion. We all regretted that. Katherine pulled out her phone which has a game where you hold the phone so others can see it. They see the word or phrase they have to act out or somehow get you to guess. I am terrible at that game so they made me have to guess the children's version. It was great fun. 

There is a volcano near Gisenyi but in the DRC called Nyiragongo, part of the Virunga National Park. It has a 2km lava crater. There has been recent activity including a new vent that has broken through. There has been news that it will erupt in the near future. 

We were able to see the glow of the lava crater from where we were sitting. Rachel took a great picture on the good camera which is not on my iPhone to download. 

Had dinner at the little restaurant by the lake. Joe, R, and I had beef brochettes and K had chicken. Of course, fries were served. We didn't leave the beach until around 9:00.