Fruit at Musanze’s Snow Hotel

This is one hotel you won’t miss on the approach to Musnze town’s central business district from the Kigali side. The tiled, L-shaped three storey structure stands rather imposingly against the backdrop of some of the jagged peaks of the Volcanoes. Beyond the tiled parking lot and as one walks towards the reception, there is a splattering of murals and art works depicting the country’s flora and wildlife –especially the wildlife; huge artistic impressions of mountain gorillas and grey monkeys. There is a splattering of tables in the forecourt to your right as you walk in, beyond which is the in-house restaurant, and further down through another door, the bar area. As far as the ground floor is concerned, that’s just about it, while the three upper floors are taken by rooms. They have 23 rooms with the usual amenities; flat screen TV panel, free wi-fi, mini refrigerator, mini workstation, and a private balcony. The rooms fall under four categories, with nine single standard rooms, ranging in price from $60-100; the twin rooms ($80-120); while the three VIP suites go for between $90-130. They have only one apartment which goes for between $120-150, depending on season and demand. I took out three nights in one of the single standard rooms during Kwita Izina week, during which time it was possible to check out other rooms and compare notes. The first discrepancy I noticed was that my bathroom had no shower cabinet, which I found in other rooms in my category that I peeped in. Otherwise, the plumbing and interior finishing was a professional job, and apart from the erratic water pressure, I saw no reason to complain. Away from the rooms, my other experience of Snow Hotel was mostly of the breakfast, the only meal I consistently partook of for the duration of my stay. Come six O’clock in the morning, and Ernest, from Front Office would dutifully place that routine call through the intercom: “Good morning Sir. Your breakfast is ready”, upon which I would descend the staircase without any hesitation. At such a time in the morning, expect to find one or two early risers at the breakfast table, which translates into eating the “cream”. There was always a big basket of fresh fruit waiting –passion fruits, tree tomatoes, sweet bananas, pine apple, and with this, I saw no need to dig into the large pot of soup that other breakfast-goers seemed to delight in. In fact, in the interest of full disclosure, my three-day long breakfast consisted of fruit and two bottles of chilled water on each of the days.