Rwanda - a Muzungu Christmas

The weekend before Christmas I flew to Kigali, Rwanda, to spend a week with Hannah and Garron. They moved there about 3 months ago and both have excellent blogs about their experiences so far:

http://millescollines.blogspot.com and http://interestingencounters.blogspot.com.

Kigali is a fairly large city with lots of traffic, a new mall, and new office buildings going up. It is set in a valley so at night with the twinkling lights up and down the hillsides and the balmy temperatures you could easily imagine that you're in Southern California instead of sub-Saharan Africa. I don't want to over-romanticize it though, during the day it's definitely Africa.

The morning after I arrived, our driver picked us up at 5 am to take us to Akagera National Park which is a large game reserve on the border with Tanzania. The park is a mixture of flat grasslands and swamps and the game watching was fabulous. We saw giraffes, baboons, zebras, topi, impalas and other deer-like animals, lots of different kinds of birds (my Aunt Allison would have loved it) and hippos.

On Tuesday morning we had a leisurely Christmas breakfast at the house and then drove out to Gisenyi which is a town on the shore of Lake Kivu, very close to the border with DR Congo. We stayed at a resort-type place near the beach. Just up the road from our hotel was the Congo border - completely closed off due to the skirmishes taking place there between the rebels and the army. At night we could hear military planes flying low overhead... a bit too close for comfort but the fighting hasn't crossed the border into Rwanda as of yet.

After two nights in Gisenyi we drove further up into the mountains to a lodge called the Gorilla's Nest where we stayed on Thursday night. We stopped at the Virunga Lodge on the way which was very difficult to get to in Garron's Toyota Corona (we scraped over every speed bump and pot hole). But we made it all the way up there and the 360-degree views of the lake and the volcanoes were definitely worth the damage to the car's undercarriage. We could only afford to stay for a drink - rooms in the completely eco-run, beautiful but rustic lodge apparently run about $700/night! Back at the Gorilla's Nest we somehow convinced the bar staff to bring out plates of french fries for us to dine on - our trip to the buffet at lunch had cured us of any desire to go back again for dinner.

Bright and early on Friday morning we checked out of our rooms and, along with almost everyone else at the hotel, piled into 4 wheel drive vehicles to take us to the starting point for the gorilla trek. There are a bunch of different gorilla groups you can see and they divide everyone into groups somewhat arbitrarily before you begin the trek. Hannah and I ended up in a different group from the rest of our friends so we drove off in the direction of the Susa Group which has the most gorillas of any group - 39 at last count. Eventually we reached a point at the edge of a remote village where our 4 wheel drive could go no further, so we hiked the rest of the way up to the entrance to the jungle. Two more hours of hiking followed through bamboo forest, jungle vines, thick shrubs, steep muddy inclines - sometimes there was a path but most of the time we got through only by following our guides who were cutting through the jungle with machetes. Needless to say, my jeans and tennis shoes were probably not the best choice.

Finally we found the gorillas and they were awesome. At first we saw just a young, lone silverback, then a little further into the forest we saw a couple of females and then suddenly they were everywhere - babies and mamas, young twins, and the lead silverback - a HUGE gorilla who looked like he could rip your head off if he was having a bad day. We were so close to them and they are fascinating creatures. You're only allowed to spend an hour with the gorillas - the guides have very strict rules about the number of people who can go up there and the amount of time you can spend in their presence. When our hour was up we hiked out of the forest and made our way back to the Gorilla's Nest to meet up with our friends. A tiring but completely thrilling experience.

Friday was my last night in Kigali. We went to Garron and Hannah's favorite restaurant - an Indian place which was really good even by London standards. On Saturday I visited the Genocide Museum. A very well done tribute to the horrible atrocities that took place in the country over a decade ago. I couldn't help but notice that the museum was funded in part by the Clinton Foundation. He has said that not taking action to stop the genocide in Rwanda was one of the biggest failures of his administration and his biggest regret. The museum is a beautiful tribute to the victims and the survivors. Sadly Darfur and the recent killings in Kenya would suggest we still haven't learned our lesson.

All in all, the trip was amazing and Hannah and Garron are wonderful hosts. Definitely a memorable Christmas!

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