Nyungwe Adventure

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Friday afternoon, we packed up the car with camping gear and another couple, and headed south to Butare. On the way, we stopped at Gatagara Pottery and had a tour of the compound. The site is a refuge for the handicapped, and a portion of the proceeds from the pottery go toward supporting them. After purchasing a casserole dish, we continued our journey. We arrived in Butare, checked into the hotel, and began a long search for the pewter factory (30 miles in the wrong direction). Eventually, we found the factory, but were too tired to care about buying anything. We drove back to Butare town and had dinner at the hotel. During dinner, a cake with fireworks was brought to one of the diners. One member from our party then told the kitchen that someone from our table was having a birthday also (no one was), but we only got a crepe with a candle in it. We retired for the evening to sleep in our twin beds pushed together. Classy.

In the morning, we were forced to arise at 6 am by our slavedriver friends for a continental breakfast at the hotel. We then hit the road for Nyungwe National Park, about 50 miles west of Butare. It took us 2.5 hours due to potholes the size of missile craters, but we eventually made it to the park headquarters. The park is under development for tourism, so USAID is funding a visitors center and canopy walk. We pitched our tents at the campsite that had running water and a pavilion, and we ate lunch. A guide led us on a 4 mile hike that went down and then up the side of a mountain. Along the hike, we saw old growth rainforest (the largest remaining rainforest in central Africa), blue monkeys, the canopy walk under construction, and the watershed that is the most remote source of the Nile River. Toward the end of the hike, it began to pour rain, and we were hurrying back to camp when Alex noticed the forest floor was moving. We inadvertently walked through a migration of thousands of drover ants. Jennifer brushed the ants off the outside of her pants, but very shortly realized this was insufficient as they began biting her legs. For such small jaws, they hurt incredibly bad, but are not poisonous. We made it back to the campsite, wet and covered in mud to find our tent sitting in a small lake. Alex dug drainage ditches and we relocated the tent to higher ground. We warmed up with wine and bacon cheeseburgers before calling it a night.

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Comments

[Andrew]

Excellent photos
These are probably the best photos of Nyngwe I have ever seen, wow..