Less than 2 weeks to go

Not too long to go now. Trying to make sure that there is nothing forgotten. I have a couple of annual travel policies, but I decided to check a few things on both of them. Moto taxis are a common form of transport in Rwanda. We are covered, but only if the engine size is less than 125cc and we wear helmets. Interesting - what is the Kirirwandra for "is the engine size less than 125cc?" and then understanding the answer and even harder not taking if if the answer is no when it may be the only form of transport? My guess is that the motos will be mostly 125cc.

The next one threw them. In one policy, it says

Part D1) – Catastrophe
If, during your journey, you can no longer stay at your pre-booked and prepaid accommodation because of:
– fire;
– storm;
– lightning;
– avalanche;
– explosion;
– hurricane;
– earthquake;
– flood;
– tidal wave;
– medical epidemic;
– pandemic.
we will pay the necessary extra travel and accommodation expenses to allow you to continue with your journey, or return to the UK if you cannot continue with your journey, up to a maximum of £500 per person.

Well the night before I had been watching Richard Hammond's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" on TV. In this was the volcanic lake of Nyiragongo, the biggest volcanic lake on the planet, in Africa. Well as a youngster I was a mad keen geologist, and as my wife can testify, I still have a passing interest, which is why she has been dragged through a still steaming crater in Hawaii that had me excited because it erupted the year she was born (we were on a 25th anniversary holiday at the time) and walked across still flowing lava.

So a quick Google and I discovered that it is in the Volcanoes National Park where we are going, but on the Democratic Republic of Congo side. Then I discovered that Goma is the nearest town, and back in 2002 the lava flowed across the runway at Goma Airport and people were evacuated back to Gisenyi, on the Rwandan side of the border - where we plan to spend a couple of nights.

So I asked the insurance company if we would be covered if our pre-booked accommodation had to be cancelled due to lava flow, as this is a remote possibility, but it is indeed a possibility - after all, it got pretty close within the last 10 years. The answer was no, but any claim would be looked at if it happened and we had to make a claim. I suppose one could argue that it is a flood - a flood of lava, as they don't specify that "flood" has to be of water.

Next was the bank for currency. The guide books and people in the country tell you that you should bring specific denominations of post 2006 US dollars - the bank, one of the biggest in the UK doesn't deal in Rwandan Francs. This is possibly not surprising as I discovered that according to the latest figures I could find, the total UK annual imports from Rwanda are £280,000 - less than half a pence for every inhabitant in the UK. If everyone in the UK spend the very smallest coin in our currency, we would double our imports. We export 10x to Rwanda than we import, and this is to one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. It seems like we have a long way to go to get a fair balance, and much opportunity for FairTrade, provided that is not at the expense of feeding the people there.

Needless to say, the UK's largest bank could not even tell me what denomination notes they would give me, nor that they would be post 2006.

We are constantly told that we are a 24/7 society and you can get anything and everything you need from our wonderful service culture - service industries being touted by our politicians as our future, but getting a post 2006 hundred dollar bill is going to be a hit and miss affair.

So once again I am left wondering if the UK is really advanced as we think we are.

After the first order went missing, I now have the basic filters for the new camera, and the various other gizmos. The best of these is a solar cell with built in 2000mAhr battery that weighs less than 300g. Thus you can use it to charge things such as phones, and the battery allows a couple of phone charges even when there is no light e.g. at night. It can also be charged from a USB socket, which is now the standard for all phone charges in Europe, so I can use this as an intermediary and save myself lots of adapters and chargers.