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The sides of the Bosphorus and the final morning - Thursday 5th October / Friday 6th October

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  A slow start! We woke up still rather full from the food tour, and having had a nice lie in - a rarity for us!  We had a leisurely breakfast and then made our way towards the Bosphorus. An area famous for fish sandwiches, and the main bridge covered in hundreds of fisherman, getting fish only a few inches long.  We boked a boat tour to take us up and doen the Bosphorus but only setting foot on the boat at dock, I could tell that I was not going to last 2 hours on the choppy sea. Instead I found myself a nice cafe, and read a book with some Turkish Tea whilst Ben sailed up and down.  The other side We crossed the bridge, walked past many a shop - the Turks really love their desserts! To get to the main highstreet, we took a tunnel tram up the hill. It cost us about 30p, but was well worth it.  At the top, they have a tram that goes up and down the highstreet in the middle of the road. We had a good wander up and down, then started to head home.  It took us about 1hr 30 minutes to walk
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Food Glorious Food! Wednesday 4th October

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  Culinary Backstreets of the Bazaar Quarter Today we did a food tour with Culinary Backstreets (previously Istanbul Eats) and it was truly fantastic. You can find my trip advisor review here:  Great food, great guide - Culinary Backstreets -Tours, Istanbul Traveller Reviews - Tripadvisor Our guide, Gonca ( Gon-jah ), was absolutelt amazing. She gave us all of the background details of what we were eating, where it cams from, how it came to Turkey, who makes it etc. She also pointed out amazing architecture, told us how to eat with the locals, and where to get the most amazing food.  The tour was meant to be 9:30-3:30, but ours went on until about 5pm. Gonca took photos of us all (tours have max 7 on them) and then sent them to us, along with some of her home cooking recipes. We walked all day, ate all day, and lkaughed all day. We then didnt eat anything else and just felt full in the hotel room for the rest of the evening!  The food, and the photos Instead of giving you a run down of
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Rwanda - an end... - 11th June (but written in October)

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  A bittersweet ending I realise now, when writing about our Istanbul holiday, that I never finished off Rwanda.  The last day, plane trip and following two weeks were all a bit of a blur.  When back at the final hotel, it was clear that neither of us felt 100%, and Ben especially, only wanted to sleep. We had a whole day to kill, with full intentions of visiting the Women's centre, but alas, Shrek in bed was our itinerary.  When it came to getting the Uber back to the airport, I felt well enough to function, but Ben was feverish and very tired. At the airport he sat down whilst I checked in and did the bits and bobs that were needed.  The plane was not like our journey out - it was packed. They didn't turn on the air con, and Ben felt so sick and lightheaded he nearly got off the plane - but thank goodness he didn't. 9 hours of a horrible flight - I barely slept with a very sweaty Ben next to me who took multiple trips to the loo... I had to drive back home from the airpor
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Mosque Mosque Bazaar! Tuesday 3rd October

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  A morning of mosques  One of Istanbul’s main attractions is the Hagia Sophia. An enormous mosque built in 537AD. It was originally a church but converted in approximately 1400 to what it is now. It has been a museum for many years but recently opened back up as a place of worship.  Queues are very long, and it opens at 9am - advise it to get there by 8:45 at the latest. The queue wraps around a courtyard and looks like it will take ages, but they let people in in large batches, if you’re in the first 2/3rds or the s shaped queue, you’ll get in first time.  Once you’re in, you take off your shoes and pop them in little lockers, and if you’re a girl, cover your head. Take your own scarf if you don’t want to buy one! Inside is beautifully lit and lovely architecture. If you love learning about the history there are plenty of guides around for you to hire- but they are quite pricey.  If you go to the Hagia Sophia first, be prepared for a long queue at the Blue Mosque! The Blue Mosque is
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A trip to Istanbul! Monday 2nd October

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We’re back!   Ben's bout of food poisoning at the end of our Rwanda trip didn’t put him off completely!  This time for a few days in Istanbul! We took the BA flight from Heathrow - paying a little extra instead of getting the Wizz Air flight from Luton. We boarded on schedule and took off on time - something flights don’t seem to do these days! There was a complimentary bottle of water and nutrigrain bar on the flight, and noticeably a couple of extra inches leg room compared to a budget airline. We arrived above Istanbul early and had to do a few circles before there was room for us to land.  We flew into SAW airport, and had arranged a transfer through booking.com - very easy to do if you have genius level 3! They aren’t allowed to hold up signs inside the airport so we had to go to a random pillar outside and point to a sign, but no issues, and our giant people carrier taxi turned up to take us to the hotel.  The journey was about an hour, and the scenery was mostly large skyscr
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Akegera boat trip, self-drive safari and road back to Kigali - 10th June

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 Akagera Boat Trip After waking up from beautiful Ruzizi, we drove down to the boat trip launch place, and climbed aboard! A very stern captain's introduction telling us to keep tight hold of all of our valubles (and hats) as the boat went quite fast - it was clear they were accepting no responsibility for lost items!  We set off on our speedy journey across the lake and the captain pointed out many birds! Weaver bird nests hung in the trees and reeds around the edges of the lake, and herons, sea eagles and cormorants were very common, but it was lovely to see them in such great numbers.  We saw a croc having a sunbathe - it was very hot on the morning we were there - and a fair few hippos having a relax or a graze on the banks that no cars could get to.  The captain tried hard to see if he could spot the elephants having a drink for us, but still, no elephants.  On our return to the dock, we got out, and as the french lady who we were sharing the trip with got out, her phone dropp
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Akegera National Park Safari - 9th June

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 Picking up our guide We picked up our guide, Felix, from reception at 6:30am - and he was keen to get going straight away. He hopped in the back seat and we set off into the park. Just to now be aware, that it gets a bit picture heavy from here on in... The map was huge (right) but we mainly made our way up and down the right hand side, dipping in and out of the loops by the lakes, and then to the plains, Mohana and Kilala. Animals, animals, everywhere... It's almost easier just to list what we saw and when (because I took a list) but I'll tell you about the best bits, and then put all the rest of the pictures at the end. One of the first animals we saw was an adult male water buffalo, who was injured, potentially by a lion. We reversed to see it closer but Felix was fairly insistent we put the car back into drive in case we needed a quick get away!  We then made our first turn towards the lake to see if anything was having an early morning drink and were met by five beautiful
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