Uganda and Rwanda Adventures

We've been in Africa for 3 months now, and are still having some amazing adventures. Right now we're in Kigali, after having spent almost 2 weeks in Rwanda. We head back to Uganda tomorrow, on our way to Kenya. Our flight to Joburg from Nairobi is on September 28th, so not much time left.

Our last blog was from Kampala, Uganda. We really didn't spend much time in Uganda - 2 nights in Kampala, and 4 nights on Lake Bunyoni. The lake was truly beautiful, dotted with islands, and surrounded by terraced hills. Our first 2 nights we stayed on the mainland, in a furnished tent overlooking the water. We hiked up a hill with a local guide so that we could get a great view of the lake. Other than that it was relaxation - finally caught up on my journal, and Brian got to watch premiership football on the tellie (he was in heaven!).

We then moved to Byoona Amagara, a hostel on Itambira Island. They bill themselves as a backpackers paradise, and they were right! It's actually owned/run by an American guy from New York, and his Slovakian wife. Bri and I stayed in a "geodome", which is hard to describe - it's made out of wood/straw, on a wooden platform, in a dome shape. But the whole front of it is open, so as we lie in bed we're looking out on the lake. It rained all day our second day there, so we really just laid in bed, read our books (they have a great library there), and watched the birds hopping around our bed trying to get out of the rain. After so many long travel days, this was just what we needed!

Our only bit of activity there was to walk to the other side of the island, where a few families live. One house was having a bit of a party, with friends from the mainland visiting. They gave Brian some "porridge" to taste - basically the sorghum beer that they make, before it ferments. The island kids were all coming up to us, wanting to give us high fives, etc. But the mainland children had never seen whities that close. Two of the little ones started crying, actually more like screaming. One parent tried to drag a little boy over to us, but he was kicking and screaming so much his pants were falling down. Very funny, but felt bad - we really aren't that scary! (Well, maybe Brian is :)

We met a lovely English/Welsh couple at Byoona, Marianne and Adam. They were heading to Rwanda, too, so we joined forces and took a motorboat, taxi, and two minibuses to get from the Island to Kigali. Beautiful scenery along the way.

Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills (le pays des milles collines) and it is an appropriate name. Where ever you are (and it is a small country) you are going up and down, over hills, through valleys. Almost every inch of the land is either covered with terraced farmland, or huts. People are everywhere along the road, and you pass village after village.

Speaking of roads, they are really very good here. Refreshing. It really seems here like Paul Kagame, the current president, is doing a great job. This is what other African countries would be like if they made a serious effort to uphold the law and get rid of corruption! Refreshing after spending so much time in Kenya and Tanzania. There are of course issues here. e.g. there are power outages pretty much every day. But from what we read in the paper this is due to dwindling reservoirs. But they have recently discovered a huge amount of methane gas underneath Lake Kivu - we saw there the new plant that they are building, which will help turn Rwanda into an exporter of power to the whole region, rather than an importer. Sounds promising.

Our first night in Rwanda was in the capital, Kigali. Seems like a pretty modern city - they've done tons of restoration since the genocide. People are very fashionable here - nice cars, nice clothes, cool plaited hair on the females, etc. And we found an amazing coffee shop! The four of us enjoyed Americanos and Cafe Mochas, in heaven. Also had a great dinner at a French restaurant, Chez Robert - yummy beef fillets with blue cheese sauce, etc.

Rwanda by the way is french speaking, so we've had to pull out our very bad French - which seems to be good enough to have basic conversations, book accomodation & bus tickets, etc.

After Kigali, Brian and I left Marianne and Adam and went to Parc National Nyungwe Forest, which covers one of the oldest rainforests in Africa. We were staying at a lodge by the Park Headquarters, with the goal of going chimpanzee tracking the next day. The ranger at the park was fantastic, and helped us figure it all out. We would be picked up at 5am and taken to the trail head on 2 motorcycles, and then picked up at the end by a bus so we could go to another city, Butare. It's a lot of work traveling to the parks without a car here - the vast majority of people travel here on organized tours. But it ends up being cheaper and more of an adventure!

So yes, getting picked up at 5am the next day was painful. But even more painful was getting on the back of a motorcycle with a small backpack on my chest and my big backpack on my back, traveling in the dark on bad potholed roads (the roads aren't so good in the park!), going up steep hills, with your backpack pulling you backwards. The only good news was that we were wearing helmets (mandated in Rwanda), and going very slow - took us 50 minutes to cover 20 kms. So felt safe, just very sore when we arrived at the trail head.

But the trip was worth it - the chimp tracking was amazing! Not just for seeing the primates swing from branch to branch, but the hike itself through the rainforest. We walked along a path for 1 1/2 hours with our guide, and then met a tracker who took us up a steep hill, climbing up a path he cut using a panga (machete). You can't worry about getting dirty - you're dragging yourself up using vines, roots, whatever you can get your hands on. Or you're sliding down hills on your butt. Up and down we went, tracking the chimps we could here wildly calling in the distance. The sounds, the landscape, the hiking, we've never experienced anything like it. After traveling quite a bit around the world, it's amazing when you still get those moments of pure joy. The chimps are "semi-habituated", meaning while they are somewhat used to seeing humans, they still run away as soon as they see you. So we only got glimpses of these primates - our closest relatives. But the trip was still absolutely amazing!

After a 7 hour hike we were quite tired, but happy. And even happier when our bus showed up and actually stopped along the road for us with 2 spare seats. We hadn't had confirmation that our seats had been booked, so we were a little worried that we'd be homeless in the middle of nowhere. Just before the bus arrived it also started raining fairly hard. Rain is a daily affair in Rwanda at this time of year - every afternoon it absolutely pours. Never seen it rain so hard before.

The next two nights we stayed in Butare, the intellectual capital of Rwanda with the main university. Students are everywhere, as are also American aid workers. Not much to do here as a tourist, other than wander around and visit the National Museum, which is quite good. We were happy to watch tv - Brian got to see some World Cup rugby and football, so he was happy. And I had some good naps and fantastic chocolate mousse at a local restaurant, so I was happy.

We then took a bus back to Kigali, and then on to Ruhengeri in the west. On the bus to Kigali we met Emmanuel, a 24 year old university student who has a sister currently going to school in Quebec. His English was ok but not great, so we mostly talked in French. He also taught us several words in Rwandan - hello, good morning, how are you, what is your name, where do you
live, etc. The main phrases you need. We practiced on people inside our packed minibus, which entertained everyone.

Emmanuel also told us a bit about himself. He grew up in the western region of Rwanda, on the shores of Lake Kivu. He was 11 years old when the genocide happened in 1994. He lost his parents and 5 brothers. Only he and his sister survived. He said he survived because he could run fast. My heart was breaking when he told us his story, so matter of fact. He said many people are still traumatized by the event, as you'd expect. When you read the paper here the genocide is mentioned quite often. But when you hear such a personal story, it all becomes even more real. Makes the progress Rwanda has made all the more amazing.

The next day we hooked up with Marianne and Adam again, and went to Kinigi, a small community near Parc National des Volcans, where we'd be going gorilla tracking. We spent a few hours that afternoon walking around the area. It took us a long time to get anywhere since we were constantly surrounded by school children, who wanted to talk with us, touch us, get us to take their picture, etc. What amazed me was when a child, I think his name was Sam, asked me to take his picture and email it to him! He actually had an email address! The school apparently has a few computers, so the kids can access email there. Amazing. This is a tiny, poor, agricultural community in the middle of nowhere.

The kids loved getting their photos taken. We'd have groups of 10-15 kids all posing for us, doing goofy things like climbing up small trees, jumping around. Lots of laughing, giggling - nice to see. My face hurt after a while from laughing so much. Made me think of my nephews and nieces - would love to see them here, playing with the local kids!

The next day was September 11th, and my 34th birthday! And what better way to celebrate a birthday than trek around the volcanoes through forests of bamboo, etc. looking for gorillas! Truly an experience of a lifetime. We spent one hour with a family of 11 gorillas. The group is called Titus, after their silverback (the male "chief").

Highlights included getting charged a few times by the blackback of the group - an 11 year old male who is almost a silverback, ie. he's incredibly huge and powerful. To see him running towards you, I swear, is crazy. I thought he was going to hit us, but he veered away. Just wanted to show us who was boss. Another gorilla surprised us from behind and walked right thru our group, brushing by Marianne. You're supposed to be 7 meters away from the gorillas at all times, but that distance is hard to maintain in the bush when the primates choose to come right up to you! We were so close, it was incredible.

Absolutely loved watching one of the babies playing with a patient adolescent. The baby jump around, pound his chest, fall backwards, climb a branch, and jump on top of the other gorilla, playfighting. So so so adorable. We took tons of pictures. All you could hear from our group was click, click, click of the cameras. Unfortunately or fortunately we didn't get too close to the silverback. We could see him lying down behind a bush - and he was absolutely huge. Didn't realize how much adrenalin was flowing through my veins until we left the gorillas and I started to calm down!

Forgot to mention that Rwanda sells 72 permits a day, to visit 9 different groups of gorillas (max 8 people can see a group, and there's only one visitation each day, for one hour). So there were a huge amount of tourists at the park headquarters before the tracking. Everyone goes to different trails/mountains, so you don't see anyone while trekking. But we were just amazed to see so many tourists. We've been spending a bunch of time walking around the communities near the hike, talking with locals, etc., and have not seen one single tourist except at the hotels. Think it's sad that the tourists just hole themselves up on compounds and don't actually explore and experience the real Rwanda! Not sure if they're scared, lazy, apathetic, or what. But they're missing out.

After the tracking the four of us took a bus to Gisenyi, a "resort town" on Lake Kivu, for 3 nights of R&R. The place was dead from a tourist perspective. The town is right on the border of DR Congo - we walked literally down the street a few minutes and came to the border. And we met
many people who live in Goma, Congo, who come across the border for school, entertainment, the beach, to run a business, etc. It's very easy for the people to get back and forth.

Perhaps the tourism industry is slow due to the recent fighting in DR Congo. It was pretty amazing to think that just 25kms away there was some serious fighting going on between Laurent's gorilla soldiers and the government (who have joined forces with the Interhamwe, the people responsible for the Rwandan genocide). Apparently Goma is safe, but we didn't try and go across. No point taking the risk, since things could change so quickly. Would be interesting to see the town, since half of it was smothered by a volcano eruption in 2002.

For two nights Brian and I stayed in a fancy hotel in Gisenyi. It was lovely hanging by the pool, eating amazing dinners, staying in a really nice room. It was the best hotel we've stayed in, in East Africa, and it was only $80 USD a night! Way more than what we would usually pay, but a nice affordable treat.

While in Gisenyi we walked over to the brewery, 5kms along a dirt road, with beautiful views of Lake Kivu. They gave us a tour of the brewery, where they bottle Primus and Mutzig beer. No freebies unfortunately.

While walking around town we also saw a group of men in pink uniforms being led by an armed guard. We assumed they were prisoners, but didn't clue in till the next day when we were at the Genocide Memorial in Kigali that these were prisoners from the Garaca courts - traditional courts which have been brought back to try and efficiently charge the perpetrators of the 1994
genocide. The tribual in Arusha Tanzania is taking care of the main leaders of the genocide (though they've only indicted 17 people so far). These local courts charge local people who took part in the killings. Considering that over a million people were killed, and that many local people were involved, this is a serious undertaking. The Garaca in Gisenyi was on yesterday morning, so all the businesses shut down - people are expected to attend, it's a civil duty.

The Genocide Memorial in Kigali was very good, informative, and heartbreakingly sad. That's all I can say.

Sorry for the very long blog. A lot has happened over the last couple of weeks. And I guess we've been particularly touched by the people, history, wildlife and landscape in Rwanda.

Hope all is well.

Love,
Anne and Brian