You'll never guess what I've just found ....

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….3 hours drive inland, west of Kigali, tucked behind a volcano, 1500m above sea level?

The SEA !!

Well almost, it’s the surprisingly large and idyllic Lake Kivu - There is a God!

There can’t be too many countries in the world that can boast such a breathtaking lakeside shoreline, pretty much untouched by human hands. Maybe that’s why no one mentioned it. With a surface area of 2,200 sq. km, you’d think it would be difficult to miss.

The reason its so quiet is maybe down to the fact that the road to Kabuye (Lake Kivu’s local town) is precarious to say the least, winding up and down some very steep hills* and before the tarmaced road arrived, courtesy of those hard working little Chinese fellows, you’d never have made it.

For the lakespotters amongst you, Kivu’s big claim to fame is it’s among the top 20 deepest and voluminous freshwater bodies in the world. Rwanda’s mountainous topography is a product of its position on the eastern rim of the Albertine Rift Valley, part of the Great Rift Valley, which cuts through Africa, from the Red Sea to Mozambique. Kivu is its largest of its 23 freshwater lakes and is effectively a large sump hemmed in by the Rift Valley walls, whilst its highest peaks in the volcanic Virunga chain - are the result of the same geological process which formed the valley 20 Million years ago. The valley also serves as a watershed between Africa’s two largest drainage systems: The Nile and the Congo.

Upon our arrival, GCSE geography expert, Paul was quick to mention that geological records suggest that the release of methane trapped below the lakes surface has resulted in regular mass extinctions, every few thousand years… hence not whole load of animals hang out there i.e. no hippos or crocs. However it may well have some of everyone’s favourite parasite Bilharzia. Oh yeah and according a French research team Lake Kivu’s the world’s number one contender for the next one of these gaseous burps or ‘Limnic Eruptions’ as they prefer to call them. Should we be lucky enough to witness this ‘inevitable’ and spectacular event, we, along with all the other oxygen dependant creatures for a few kilometres, will be painfully suffocated to extinction. Ah … that’ll be why it’s quiet.

I must confess it took us a little longer to get there than most, as we missed a turning and didn’t realise our mistake until we arrived in Butare, on the Burundi border, some 100km in the wrong direction. Beat that - there can’t be too many idiots that get so lost that they find themselves in another country? I’m blaming Paul, thrash metal drummer and navigator for the trip. He blames the dark and fatigue. In his line of work you’d think he’d be use to both of them. The fatigue was mainly due to ‘his’ decision for us both to climb Mount Bisoke, Rwanda’s third tallest volcano, earlier in the day.

Mount Bisoke is in Rwanda’s Les Volcanoes national park, situated in the northern most part of the country, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We chose to climb Bisoke for one reason and one reason only - cost i.e. it was the cheapest walk in the park by some margin at $40. The reason most normal tourists come to this particular park is to see the world famous gorillas, those of ‘Sigourney Weaver (Diane Fossey) - Gorillas in the Mist’ fame. First discovered by a German chap called von Beringe in 1902, if of course you ignore the local Batwa Pygmies, that have ‘dined on’ and cohabited with them for several millennia.

Catching a glimpse of one of those big boys (the Gorillas not the Pygmies) will set you back a cool $500 or about 2 years salary in Rwandan money - yeah, I know, bargain. Needless to say, more Yanks have now seen the magnificent Rwandan Silverback in its natural Rwandan habitat than Rwandans!

For no obvious reason, as is compulsory with all outdoorsy activities, we had to meet for our walk at the crack of dawn. We met our local guide, Fidele, at 6am and drove him to the base of the volcano - just us, as clearly we were the only cheapskates to choose their most budget walk. After paying a very shifty looking farmer in a Westlife t-shirt £2 to guard our car (Fidele insisted, something about losing all the wheels and petrol and who wouldn’t trust a man that can get his hands on a Westlife t-shirt in the arse-end of nowhere) the three of us set off. We’d gone no more than 10m before two soldiers appeared with machine guns, really big ones, guns that is. Fidele nods and then one starts to lead the way, the other takes position at our rear. No one said a word - them or us. Normally I would usually have said something straight away, like …

‘Hey Fidele, my friend…soldiers… machine guns, a bit weird - what’s the story? ‘

I’m blaming little or no sleep and the fact that it was already abundantly clear we’d massively underestimated the severity of the climb. Whatever the reason, after about 1.5 hours, sweating out the previous nights festivities (No mum, I’ll never learn!), I decided to break the ice. To be honest it was an excuse for a desperately needed rest. I’m not ashamed to say, I was shattered and Paul looked like he’d seen a ghost, actually several.

‘ Hey Fidele, what’s with the soldiers - to warn off poachers?’.

Rather than answer straightaway, he decides to start up a conversation with the soldiers. A couple of minutes pass and then he turns to us and says

‘They’re to protect you from you from charging animals.’

‘Oh yeah, what type?’, says Paul, all of a sudden surprisingly perky

‘Er… (Pause).. Er…elephants and water buffalo’, he replies. Notice strangely nothing about Gorillas. The chances of seeing a Gorilla on their ‘budget tour’ are up there with rocking horse shit and snowballs in hell i.e. slim)

As I said, I was at a particularly low ebb and Paul appeared to be having difficulty breathing, otherwise we probably would have given this an ounce of thought and questioned the likelihood of finding water buffalo, let alone a 2 tonne elephant in thick jungle 3700m up a volcano. Especially when you consider I’d already driven for six hours round one of their other national parks (the one with all the animals in it - supposedly) in search of an elephant only to come up disappointingly short. Incidentally, Paul did claim to have seen one of Rwanda’s rare Golden Monkeys in a tree, but was quickly shot down (metaphorically speaking of course) by one of the soldiers, who seemed to take great pleasure in reclassifying his sighting as a squirrel, a very common one.

Anyhow we pressed on and after 2 agonisingly difficult hours of climbing, we reached crater lake at the top. Imagine climbing steep stairs, covered in mud and thick bushes, 2 to 3 at a time, in 80-degree heat, with rapidly reducing levels of oxygen, non-stop for 2 hours …oh and throw in a nasty hangover just for a laugh - yep, not fun. On a clear day I’m sure the view is breathtaking, maybe even exhilarating. Sadly, but maybe more appropriately, a thick gloomy mist and heavy rain greeted our arrival.

I was collapsing onto the bench at the top, feeling pretty disappointed with myself and my performance, when our new pal Fidele pipes up with what later turned out to be the second best quote of the day.

‘No-one’s ever climbed it as quick as that before’

If id had any energy left and if he wasn’t such a nice guy, I think id have hit him, but instead I just sat in a stunned silence, apart from the mine and Paul’s wheezing of course.

Paul did manage to catch his breath long enough to ask how long it normally takes people.

‘Oh around 3-4 hours, but many turn back about half way up (Typically American women - Quel surprise)’

I’m not sure if I was more pleased or annoyed with this bit of information. Relieved probably.

Whilst this brief exchange was taking place, I couldn’t help notice that the two soldiers were getting a little twitchy and agitated and one of them began to indicate it was time to move.

It was at this point that Paul asks if we could take look at the other side of the lake and volcano, not 30m away.

‘Oh no, that’s The Democratic Republic of Congo, we’re on the border and we need to leave now’ says our trusty guide.

Now I must confess, I didn’t do much reading up on Rwanda and its politics before arrived or even in my first 10 weeks in the country. In fact, I didn’t even buy a guidebook. Some might say that this was a little fool hardy, maybe even a touch naive on my part, because pick up any book on Rwanda or even one of its daily newspapers and you’ll make some very interesting discoveries about it’s neighbour ‘The DRC’. Apart from finding out it’s a ‘democratic republic’, source of the river ‘Congo’, home to more elephants than the rest of the world combined and that they're big ‘Um Bongo’ drinkers, you’ll discover that a fair few of the world’s nastiest characters are currently taking residence there. The same nasty characters that committed many of the worst atrocities of Rwanda’s Genocide, before everyone’s friends, the French, aided their escape. Coincidentally, I read in the paper the very next day that these very same Interhame Rebels hang out on the border. You can probably guess where.

It’ll come as no surprise to hear that our decent of the volcano was a little quicker than our climb, twice the speed to be exact. If records were broken on the way up, they were smashed on the way down.

With my newfound interest in this region’s troubles I’ve been paying a little more attention to our friends on the BBC World Service and their regular news bulletins. Turns out civil war’s breaking out in that little neck of the woods and 100,000 people have been evacuated this week, as rebels appear to be killing thousands of innocent civilians.

What were we thinking, like climbing any volcano is ever going to be a good idea.


The ‘British’ Broadcasting Corporation’s World Service is currently broadcasting commentary on an ‘English’ Premiership football match…. in Swahili ! What’s that all about? EVEN Rwandans don’t speak Swahili !!


*Another pub quiz / Google question for you - When is a hill not a hill i.e at what point does it become a mountain? Let me know when you find out. Thanks

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Photos

Home sweet Home!
Nothing more than I deserve - ive been gooood.

Essential for every experienced rambler ...
... an armed guard.

So let me get this straight...
those two guys behind me are looking out for cows?

Eek Vampire Bats!
...nope just fruit ones.

Blimey its Diane Fossey!!
Arse...it's only Sigourney Weaver

Who needs pictures of cute kids ...
When you've goy hairy baby gorillas!?