A tough, but beautiful day

Today was a tough day. After the steep hills of yesterday, we had many more hills today. By now we can surely confirm that Rwanda’s nickname, “The country of the 1000 hills”, is totally correct. But it weren’t only the hills that made it hard today. The track from Kinini to Gisenyi was one of 90km. Because of the length, and the fact that the first 10km was completely uphill, the bikers had the option to do the first part by bus. Tough as they are, only a few did.

The past few days we only saw smiling faces and waving cyclists in front of the camera, even on the very steep hills we already passed. But today, on the many very long hills, it was for the first time that we saw our cyclists suffer. 

Thanks to the many steep climbings in the first part of the day however, we could also enjoy a super nice downhill where many bikers set their speed record for this edition of Bike for Africa.

Just like the last few days we had a lot of fans on the sides of the road. All villages we pass, seem to be very aware of our presence, and some of them really go the extra (s)mile! At a certain point today, we were stopped by a group of children blocking the road to party with us. Of course, we cannot say no to something like that!

After the little party on the road we continued for the last few kilometers till the Kivu Peace View Hotel, our home for tonight. But we didn’t reach it without conquering the last 10% uphill of the day on the way to the entrance. Everyone arrived exhausted at the reception, to discover they had to park their bikes a few floors up…

To relax at the end of the day, many of us decided to go for a small trip to the Kivu Lake, of which we have a wonderful view from the hotel. After a walk in the sand and a local beer in a beach bar, we concluded a tough day in a beautiful way!