Hello Moto!

Travelling through Rwanda is a wonderful experience if you know where to go. There is so much to see and if you happen to get lost, the locals are more than happy to help you find your way, as long as you can identify at least one or two landmarks or the place you are staying at.

Having lived with the usual tedium of traffic jams and getting late for meetings, it’s refreshing to not have to go through that in Rwanda. There are no traffic jams except those at the traffic lights and even then, those are not really what one would call a traffic jam.

If you’re like me, you’ve travelled by car all your life and occasionally, you’ve relied on a bicycle (your own) to get you from place to place. After my friends and I crossed the Kenya-Uganda border into Kampala, I noticed an increase in the number of motorcycles in the city. This was also the case with Kigali. I was surprised to come to a place where the motorcycle drivers all convened waiting for willing customers. How interesting, I thought, and promised myself that I would ride one before I left Kigali.

Then I found out that I had no choice. On my way to work, I had to get on a motorbike or moto taxi as they are called here. There was no other way. Those were the most exhilarating five minutes of my life. Of course, my friends who are all used to using motorbikes as means of travel laughed at me, but really, it is an experience!

Said friends also commented that the bikes here are much more comfortable than the ones at home and the fact that, by law, you must wear a helmet adds a sense of security for the rider.At least if you get hurt, you have a better chance of living through it.

Now I know, most you are thinking “death trap!” and that you don’t trust motorcycles further than you can throw them, and quite frankly neither did I, but it’s actually not so bad after the first couple of rides. Besides, if you happen to be stuck out rather late or stranded somewhere you don’t know, these guys can really come in handy for you.

Of course there’s always the option of calling up a friend with a personal car or having one yourself, but when you can’t rely on a bus or on a taxi, travel by moto!