CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
465 km from Kigali to Kigali, about 10 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Nyamata, Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, Nyungwe National Park and back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is Rwanda Congo Nile Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Rwanda's coffee is a good reason to spend an afternoon in Kigali's hills. Gisozi, the district on the northern ridge of the city, is better known for its memorial, but the neighbourhood is also a good base for exploring the city's café culture, since the climate and altitude that make Rwanda a fine place to grow coffee also make it a pleasure to drink it. Arabica bushes, mostly of the bourbon variety, grow on small farms in the volcanic and high-altitude soils of the country, picked by hand and washed at nearby stations, and the beans are known for a bright acidity and notes of fruit and flowers.
Read the complete Gisozi A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gisozi A is where the day begins. Next is Nyamata.
The church at Nyamata is a plain brick building with a corrugated iron roof, and what it holds is the memory of one of the worst weeks of the twentieth century. In April 1994, during the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, thousands of people from the surrounding villages took refuge in the church, as they had in earlier waves of violence, assuming that a house of God would protect them. It did not. Killers entered with grenades, machetes and clubs, and in the days that followed some ten thousand people died in and around the church. Today it is a memorial. The clothes of the victims lie in piles on the pews, the altar cloth is still stained, and in an underground vault the remains of tens of thousands from the district are kept in coffins and on shelves.
Read the complete Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nyamata comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata.
This is a place to arrive quietly. Both belong to the group of four genocide memorials, Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi in Kigali and Bisesero, that UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2023, recognising them as places of remembrance of the genocide against the Tutsi, in which some eight hundred thousand to a million people were murdered in about a hundred days.
Read the complete Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 145 km into the recorded legs you reach Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata. Next is Nyungwe National Park.
Nyungwe is one of the oldest rainforests in Africa, a mountain forest spread over the ridges of south-western Rwanda between Lake Kivu and the Burundi border. It is high, wet and green in a way that makes the rest of the world feel dry: tree ferns taller than a house, orchids on the branches, mist pouring through the valleys in the morning, and the sound of water everywhere. The ridges here form part of the great divide between the Congo and Nile basins, and Rwanda proudly claims one of the remotest sources of the Nile in these hills.
Read the complete Nyungwe National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nyungwe National Park, about halfway. Next is back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata sits at 233 km, about halfway. Next is back through Nyamata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nyamata comes up about 430 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gisozi A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gisozi A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gisozi A closes the day.
Gisozi A → Nyamata is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nyamata → Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → Nyungwe National Park is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nyungwe National Park → back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 102 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → back through Nyamata is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Nyamata → Gisozi A is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.