After our trek to the Amahoro group, Vicky suggested we go to Gisenyi and Lake Kivu. He said it was an hour away, but it was closer to 2 hours. There were SO many people walking on the road (Christmas traffic, I suppose). Imagine your neighborhood, but with no cars, and all the people that would have been in cars are on that one road, walking - and all the stuff that would have been in the trunks of their cars is in bundles being carried by the women, mostly on their heads (which, lets face it, it much more efficient).

Some of the huts that we passed had lovely little flower gardens out front and others were decorated with corn cob garlands, that if you squinted kind of looked like Christmas lights. We passed villages with "telephone stands" - essentially a wood hut with a circa 1980 office telephone and sometimes a few people in line. Some villages had communal toilet buildings (a stone structure with three separate rooms each containing a western toilet). We passed many of these structures that were under construction.

We saw a UN refugee center, which was a sobering reminder of where we were. We saw lots of tea fields and a very large outdoor market where it looked like you could buy spices, vegetables, and livestock. The weather and scenery changed several times on the drive.

Gisenyi was pretty and almost tropical with dense green foliage. The mountains ringing the lake were gorgeous, especially with the misty clouds partially obscuring them. It was also about 5-10 degrees warmer than Ruhengeri.

We went to the Kivu Sun to use the internet and post an update to our blog about our visit to the Amahoro group. The hotel seemed very nice and had a great pool area overlooking the lake. We walked along the beach and I joked that it looked inviting except for my fear of schistosomiasis after our visit to the travel clinic ("there's no shot for it, and it's nasty stuff, so best to stay out of the water").

We were a little disoriented and trying to figure out which direction we were pointing, and thinking we must be near the Congo border. We asked Vicky and he said it was 5 minutes down the road. We asked how difficult it was to pop over for a passport stamp, and he said "you are Americans, you can go anywhere - we'll leave the vehicle in Rwanda though". We asked a few times if we could just get a stamp, "we don't have to go in" we explained "we can just ask for a souvenir stamp." Vicky said it was better to say that we were going to have a drink at a hotel that is just on the other side of the border. I thought that we needed a visa, but we decided to check it out. Five minutes later we were at the border which was very reminiscent of the Nmanga border between Kenya/Tanzania, but with a different vibe.

First we had to check out of Rwanda. The immigration officer was wearing a University of Texas t-shirt and Andy listed his occupation as Tourist on the paperwork. I asked about the visas for the Congo and Texas said we didn't need one (later I realized that he was saying "you don't need one for Rwanda".

There was a big metal barrier blocking the road, so we had to walk behind an old dilapidated guard shack where our passports were checked by a man with an automatic weapon. Then we were in "no mans land¨ (not Rwanda and not the DRC) for about 100 yards and then we arrived in the Congo. Let's just say that it had a whole different vibe and there was no welcome bookmark like when we arrived in Rwanda.

Once inside the immigration office, the three of us we were taken into small a back room with the immigration officer and the door was closed behind us. In Swahili, I assume Vicky said something like "Hello, how are you. My American friends want to go have a drink at the hotel down the road, that ok? thank you." I didn't hear the word mazungu (white person in Kinyarwando - the children shout it at us when we dive around). I did hear the word "sawa sawa" and "asante". The straight-faced officer shuffled through our passports, looked at us, looked at the passports, looked at us again. Do these guys actually look at the stamps? Scan for quantity? Was he wondering about the Egyptian and Chinese work visas? Was he trying to give us the full Congo experience?

After what seemed like forever (it was actually a few minutes) he smiled, handed us our passports, and said "you are welcome." We said "asante sana" and got the hell out of the back room with the closed door. After writing our information in a book, they asked for the visa fee ($30 each - they didn't even bother giving the price in RWF or Congolese Francs). I knew this wasn't some sort of shakedown, since I thought we needed them, so we looked at each other and figured what the heck. I paid the $60, we filled out the paperwork, and they asked our occupations (Andy went with "Director" and I went with "Consultant" figuring it would be easier to explain that "Creative Director" or "Information Technology Specialist"). They stamped our passports and gave us two pieces of paper written entirely in French.

So now we're in the Congo. A street man approached us with an 8 inch stack of money and asked if we want to exchange some currency. Uh, no asante sana. Later we learned that it was worthless money from when the country was called Zaire. We walked down a dirt path flanked by little empty stands.

I'm not sure what they sold or to whom since the area was eerily deserted except for a few people on motorbikes. We walked about half a mile down the road and turned into the Ihusi Hotel which had two turrets outside with armed guards in them.

The hotel was packed with locals celebrating Christmas - we, uh, didn't blend. We decided to have a drink and then leave - no coca-cola so we had a Fanta. We took our "here we are in the Congo" picture, and proceeded quickly back to the border.

More paperwork to check out of the DRC, another stamp, back through no mans land, back around the dilapidated hut, and back through Rwanda immigration where we got another stamp. The whole excursion took 30 minutes - a very weird, wacky 30 minutes that took us a half mile into the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a Passport Stamp.