Arrival

Greetings from Kigali!  After approximately 900 hours on a plane, Ellen and I arrived safely at Kigali International Airport, which is more like downtown self-pay parking lot for planes.  I hope flight crew remembered to leave the ticket on the dash.  Things I know now that I did not know before flying to Rwanda:

• On Brussels Airlines, they give you an ice cream bar in between meals.  For real. Vanilla and caramel ice cream dipped in chocolate and coated in peanuts.   
• People on their way to Africa shop the crap out of the duty free cart.  Every other time I've seen flight attendants roll down the aisle with the duty free cart, the passengers shift their eyes guiltily/annoyedly downward as if she were a panhandling gypsy.  Not the case on Brussels Airlines-- people were lined up in the aisle (literally) to buy chocolate bars, liquor, and perfume like you wouldn't believe.  It's as if everyone on the plane simultaneously realized they forgot to bring something back for their boss that they don't really like all that much.
• The absolute very last thing you want to do after you get off an eight-hour flight is run to board a plane for another eight-hour flight. 

I think Ellen would enjoy jungle life.

All things considered, though, the trip went very smoothly.  It did take almost an hour for our bags to come off the plane, but no one else seemed too concerned, so we weren't either.  Our first strange occurrence came when we grabbed one of Ellen's bags off the conveyor belt, and she noticed that it had been marked with the number 30 in white chalk on top.  I will now open the floor for submissions as to what this means.  I hope it's not Kinyarwanda for "the bearer of this bag is now marked for gorilla sacrifice."  That would seem like a stretch, but just in case, I would like to put it on the internet record that the bag is filled with ELLEN'S STUFF.

Our room in the Gorillas Hotel.

Happily, one of our guides, Eric, was waiting for us when we emerged from the airport.  Also happily, he drives a white Land Cruiser, so we will be traveling around Rwanda in style while we're with him.  He's extremely smiley and friendly, and we like him already.  He helped us get settled in the Gorillas Hotel (not the kind Ellen will be living in after she's handed over to the gorillas, but a real hotel in Kigali) which is perfectly adequate for our needs.  Not "nice," per se, but neat and clean and, most importantly, Wi-Fi capable.

Tonight we're just going to crash and try to get acclimated to GMT+2 and the altitude of the Land of a Thousand Hills.  Tomorrow, Eric will pick us up at 10 and we'll head to Musanze, the closest town to the Parc National des Volcans, where Ellen's future adoptive family lives.  Until then...