Urwibutso Agro-Park

Sina Gerard started with a bakery at a roadside stop on the Kigali-Musanze road and built it into Urwibutso, a farm and processing operation making banana wine, fruit juices, bread, flour and, above all, akabanga, the chilli oil in the small yellow-capped bottle that sits on tables across Rwanda and is fierce enough that a drop is a serious amount. The estate runs tours through the fields and the processing, and the roadside shop is a fixture of the drive north.

What you actually see

• The akabanga production - the chilli oil pressed and bottled on the estate.
• The banana wine - fermentation and bottling shown on the tour.
• The farm - fruit, chilli and other crops grown on the estate.
• The roadside shop - the stop every vehicle on the Musanze road seems to make.

When to go

Year round; tours are arranged in advance and the shop runs daily. Weekday mornings are best for seeing production. The shop is busiest at midday with passing traffic.

Honest expectations

Tours must be arranged ahead and are not always available. The visit is a factory and farm tour rather than a scenic one. Akabanga is far hotter than most visitors expect and a drop is genuinely a drop.

Nearby

Kigali is south, and Musanze is north.