Rwanda and gorillas here I come, I hope

I flew from Vic Falls to Jo'burg SA and had a connecting flight into Kigali Rwanda that would make one stop in Burundi on the way to Rwanda. The 2nd flight has an South African Airlines flight number but is operated by Rwanda Airlines, oh goody me. I don't know much about this airline. I guess they only have 2 planes and the jet has been broken for a while so they have been chartering any airline that has an available plane. I can't understand why SA Airlines doesn't just use one of their planes.

We leave about 1 hour late. About 1 hour into the flight the pilot announces that due to mechanical difficulty he is turning back to Jo'burg. Not exactly great news so I just hope it's something minor like a light that won't turn off in the cockpit. Upon landing we go to the hanger area and sit on the plane for about another hour before they decide it will take longer to fix. We wait longer for buses to pick us up and once at the terminal they tell us to go to the restaurant and get something to eat up to a value of about $75.00 Rand ($10-11). I'm sitting with a guy from the U.S. that works for an NGO, a U.S. girl that works in Kigali for an NGO and 3 business men from Jo'Burg. Four of them tell me that they were on Friday's flight that was cancelled and then I find out that Wed's flight was also cancelled. I'm hoping this flight isn't cancelled since it will screw up my Gorilla Permit that cost $500 and is only good for the day you bought it. Airline staff say the plane will board at 1030pm but we don't board until after 1130pm. Seems that orginal pilot was out of hours and they also had to get another plane.

Finally around midnight we take off after the open seating stampede for seats. The Burundi pax are told that that airport is closed for the night so they have to go to Kigali and wait for another flight in the morning. I had woken up at 6am on Sunday for my first flight and I finally arrived into Kigali around 5am on Monday morning a little worse for wear.

Luckily customs & immigration was very easy (no visa for Canadians) and I didn't have to wait for my bags. Martin my driver for the next 5 days was waiting there to take me to the Novotel Hotel in town. We would skip the city tour for now so I could get some sleep before heading out of town to Volcano Nat'l Park for 3 nights.