Excursion through Rwanda - Week 5

The last week we spent in Rwanda we spent as tourists as we travelled around in a van that was way too small for all of us plus our luggage. I’m not a big fan of the whole tourism thing. Don’t get me wrong, everything we did was a lot of fun, but I would have almost rather spent that last week spending more time with our students.

The week started out with horseback riding in Kigali. Only a few of us actually got on the horse, but everyone came along anyways. I haven’t been on a horse since the beginning of the summer and I’ve only ridden a few times since college. Makes me sad when I think about how I used to ride multiple times a week for so many years of my life. But it felt really good to be back in a saddle. The horses were Kenyan polo horses and although I was super out of shape, horseback riding is something you never really forget to how to do once you learn and its cool to say I got to go riding in Rwanda.

The next day we set out towards Nyungwe National Park – the rainforest! We did a hike there and a canopy walkway, which was a freestanding bridge suspended 60 meters above the forest. It was pretty scary since the whole bride shook with every step taken, but it was so cool to see the forest from above. Throughout our hike on the Igishigishigi Trail (which means “tree friends” in Kinyarwanda) we saw three different types of monkeys  - baboons, blue monkeys, and white and black ones that I don’t remember the name of – and lots of birds and plants. After seeing the rainforest here, I definitely have my eyes set on the Amazon someday.

Canopy walkway

After the hike we went to museums all about the history and culture of Rwanda. It was so cool, especially the geography room because I’m all about that. I really like how the museum didn’t mention the genocide at all. The genocide is what typically comes to mind whenever they think about Rwanda, but it’s really not prevalent at all in day-to-day life here. The museum focused more on traditional Rwanda – traditional housing, clothes, wildlife, drink – all that good cultural stuff. I’m not really into museums, but I enjoyed going.

That night we drove to the eastern side of Rwanda to Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu is huge and we stayed at a motel right on the water. Since we arrived at night, I had no idea how close we were, but when I got up early in the morning to use the bathroom I stepped outside to the enormous lake right there. It was beautiful. That day we went to a small beach to go swimming and then caught a boat to a small island. We spent the rest of the day on the island, hanging out, eating good food and drinking good beer. We were served fish that was caught right before it was grilled and fresh lamb brochette (skewers). I love being around the water, so it was an awesome and relaxing day.

On Thursday we went to Akagera National Park (a savannah grassland park) where we went on a safari. To our surprise a guide just hopped in our already crowded van and we drove that instead of a jeep…another bumpy ride. We saw so many cool animals so close up: a few different kinds of antelopes, giraffes, zebras, monkeys, hippos, warthogs, Nile crocodiles, quails, and other various birds. Unfortunately we had to turn back because of an incoming storm before we saw any elephants or Cape buffalo, but that’s all right. Just means I have to come back someday, right? We were out in the park for a good six hours and we all just wanted to get out of that damn van. But we had to head towards the northern country, so back into the van we went.

The next day in Northern Rwanda we saw the volcanoes from a distance and we were going to hike around them, but instead we went on a tour through some caves. It’s so crazy, but we were actually the first tour group to ever go through the caves. They had finished the trail through them a few months ago and just opened it up to the public the day before we went. And good thing they did because the caves were awesome. They are 6 millions years old, created by volcanic activity in the area. Now this was no Luray Caverns, walk in the park. I haven’t been to Luray since I was little, but I do remember everything being lit up along the way. Not here. The only light you had was the one you brought with you. The guide (Fernando) made us turn our lights off a few times to just stand in the dark and listen to bats flying around us. Kind of creepy, but very cool. We saw so many bats. Fernando said that nobody has done research on the bats, so no one really knows how many there are in the caves, but by what we saw just standing there for a mere 15 minutes, it was clear there were thousands.

The last day of our excursion before heading back to Kigali was to visit Lake Kivu again in the northern part of the country. I went jet skiing for the first time with Shannon, it was a lot of fun. We got some more sun, so I got a nice tan before coming home to the cold and snow.

Saying goodbye to Leon, Teddy, and Steve at the airport was really hard. They helped us so much, we literally couldn't have done anything without them, and they became good friends. I know I'll keep in touch with them and I hope someday we'll meet again.