Umwaka mushya muhire!
Happy New Year! We hope this post finds you and your loved ones enjoying the season - whatever it is and wherever you are! The new year will surely bring lots of surprises and may yours include exciting adventures!
We have continued to experience the sensory delights of all that is Rwanda. This has been one of our goals during our short stay in this beautiful country and so, in the last few weeks, we have once again hit the road. This latest adventure consisted of a weekend at Lake Muhazi - a long, narrow, shallow lake in the east of Rwanda - and trips to Volcanoes National Park to go gorilla trekking, and then a relaxing stay in the northwestern town of Gisyeni on Lake Kivu.
It is amazing that a small country like Rwanda has so much to offer to those who are into outdoor activities. Whether it is canoeing, kayaking, hiking, bird watching, chimp or gorilla trekking, or doing a safari, the experience will be simply Rwandaful! (Okay, had to get this one in and out of the way so that the story can roll on!)
Lake Muhazi
Our Belgium acquaintances and neighbors, Antoine and Florence, told us that Lake Muhazi was the idyllic place to escape the hustle and bustle of life in Kigali. It is only 40 kilometers east of Kigali and accessible by good roads. The region has a laid back feel and is the perfect place to spend a weekend doing very little. Swimming is not an option for us as we will not chance getting schistosomiasis, a water-borne disease, although it is curable with meds. We researched places to stay and found one 6 kilometers down a rutted and bumpy dirt road called Muhazi Beach Resort. When we arrived, we felt we were the only ones there which made for a strong bargaining position. We looked at two types of bungalows. The cheaper one at $45 a night was farther from the lake than the $50 a night one. However, we felt that the rooms were priced too high and started to bargain for the $50 a night room. In the end, we got it for $40 but felt we could have done better. The weekend was indeed relaxing. Although the food was excellent at the resort, we had read about a place called Jambo Beach and decided to check it out.
Jambo Beach has been described as "a weird hybrid of a children's park, outdoor seating with a McDonald's feel, wonderfully adequate food and a roaming crested crane." Perhaps the reference to McDonald's was due to the yellow umbrellas and plastic chairs, but this place was far from a fast food restaurant. There was playground apparatus near the bathrooms so we chose to sit in a gazebo by the lake and had a leisurely lunch of chips (French fries) and a fish brochette (pieces of fish on a stick).
A day later, we returned for a grilled whole tilapia with chips and a couple of Skol lager beers. Skol International has breweries in twelve different African countries including Rwanda. Skol lager in the 50 cc size has become one of our favorites. It is advertised on the website as "a combination of European technology, Brazilian 'joie de vivre' and African family values." The roaming crested crane decided to roam into our gazebo to beg for scraps. It had a very aggressive manner and despite our constant shooing, this uninvited guest persistently poked its head in and out of the gazebo coming closer to our fish dish each time.
Back at the Muhazi Beach Resort, besides eating, drinking, and watching the rain fall on the lake, we completed some school work and did lots of pleasurable reading.
Observations on our Lake Muhazi trip:
Paved roads represent so much here in Rwanda. They link the countryside to the larger towns and cities and provide venues for pedestrian traffic and inter- and intra-city transportation. They also host local home-grown ventures such as bicycle and moto-taxiing and produce-hauling - much of it manual - of all kinds. More importantly, they symbolize the possible, the world that might one day reach into small villages miles and miles in this land's interior. Tarmac potential.
A visit to the Muhazi Beach Resort during the rainy season would involve a muddy, rutty, bumpy road trip once off the paved road. It would be worthwhile if simply hunkering down and doing very little is the itinerary of choice.
It is a good idea to pack warm clothing as nights are very cool particularly after rains.
The Rwandan landscape forever interests, no matter the location.
Gorilla Trekking
We had planned a gorilla trekking trip with our good buddies, Mimi and Bo, but life got in the way and they were not able to join us for this unique experience. Unique, in that the mountain gorillas of Rwanda share 98% of our DNA and a personal encounter with one is, in some very easily understood ways, like looking at oneself in a mirror. Of sorts! There are over 300 gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, a 62-square-mile park that has restricted access to the animals. The Park is located on the Virunga Massif, a range of saw-toothed volcanic peaks along the shared borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. With only 900 mountain gorillas remaining in the wild, the Virunga population is 480.
The Park permits only 80 tourists a day in groups of eight to visit the ten 'habituated' family groups some of which are located 45 minutes away in the rain forest and others hours distant. We chose the closest group.
We booked our trek in Kigali and were fortunate to get the foreign resident rate at $375 per person per trek. This was a bargain as non-residents pay $750 per person per trek. We reserved in December because, come new year, the permits are set to increase to $950 for non-residents and half that amount per resident. Gorilla trekking is also possible in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just a short distance across the northwestern border in Giyseni, via the border town of Goma, but this is an area in which chaos rules and we were not about to venture there.
The eight-minute video below captures the highlights of our day gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park. The music track, when not interrupted by grunts, groans and...gorilla chatting...may be recognizable as the soundtrack to Gorillas in the Mist, composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre.
As a side note, weeks earlier, we had booked a canoe trip down a river in the area of Musanze, the city which was our base for the gorilla trek. This was planned for the day before the trek but the water level of the river, controlled by a dam upriver, was too low and the trip was cancelled. Instead, we decided to explore the northwestern part of the country, discovered Mrs. Rosamond (Roz) Carr's orphanage (click on this link to read a brief bio and this one to view a short trailer of a documentary about her life), and literally car-crashed a local wedding. As we approached the village, a part of the ceremony was occurring in the road. The bride, groom, guests and village members were gathered in the road and walking toward us! What a scene as we slowly backed up trying not to run over the hundreds of children and guests who quickly surrounded the car. Below is a short five-minute video of the day's trip and our unintended attendance at a wedding. The soundtrack is a very popular song by Yvan Buravan (again!) called Just a Dance.
Holiday Cards
Suggested Read
This one's a classic and highly recommended although the story takes place not in Rwanda, but in Nigeria. A few passages we appreciated:
"Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."
"Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings."
"Everyone laughed heartily except Okonkwo, who laughed uneasily because, as the saying goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb."
What's Up Next
The fall university semester finishes officially in mid-January after students take their final exams. We've got lots to share about our wonderful experiences with our College of Education, University of Rwanda students, and others with whom we've been working. Experiences that everyone can relate to. Hope you enjoy them...
Suggestions to offer about any information in this post? Please comment and click here to contact us directly and/or receive future posts.