Why is that all the amazing places we want to go are so far away? We started out on Friday evening with a 6 plus hour flight to Amsterdam. There we had a three hour layover after which we boarded an 8 plus hour flight to Kigali, Rwanda. By the way, it is pronounced "key-gali" not "ka-gali." That ends your lesson in pronunciations of East African capitals for the day. Anyhow, we got there at about 8 PM which meant it was pitch black and all we really saw the first night was a lot of motorcycles which serve as taxis, although the riders don't put their arms around the drivers. We weren't on one, thankfully, as even though we packed light, our luggage wouldn't fit. We did also discover the local Rwandan beer, Primus (pronounced prim-us) at the hotel. Imbibing in the local brew is a tradition of ours.
The next morning started with a city tour of Kigali. Our guide and driver were one in the same, Eric. While people probably think we are nuts going to Rwanda given it's recent history (I am talking to you, Ian Lasher, if you read), it provides a good starting point for gorilla viewing and has really had a lot invested in its infrastructure. In Kigali, there are lots of new buildings from office towers (well, 2 we saw) to government buildings to quite fancy homes. It is also one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen, anywhere in the world. No trash or debris anywhere. When we complimented Eric on that, he seemed quite proud and told us it was named the cleanest city in Africa. The other thing that struck us was the number of people outside, walking to their destinations. People walk everywhere here, right alongside the road, even outside of the city. We couldn't go more than 10 seconds without passing someone walking along. Eric told us the larger crowds were coming to and from church as it was Sunday and this is a very Catholic country. But it still seemed a lot. And people are very fit from it. Our overweight nation should take notes.
We had two main destinations, both having to do with the horrible genocide there in 1994. First, Eric took us to Hotel des Milles Collines which is the actual from the movie Hotel Rwanda (go rent it if you haven't seen it...heartbreaking but well done) where the general manager provided protection for 1,000 Tutsis when they were being persecuted and killed by the Hutus. It is still in operation today. It looks rather small but is rather deep. Still it is hard to imagine so many people getting sanctuary there. It also looked different than the movie so we asked Eric if it had been filmed there. IMBD says it was filmed in South Africa and Rwanda but we weren't sure about the actual hotel. This led to a bit of a wild goose chase as Eric seemed to misunderstand us and thought we wanted to buy the movie. We did not realize this until we pulled into a local video store and he went in to check if they had it. Luckily they didn't as we didn't want to buy it and probably would have felt obligated based on Eric's good customer service. The next stop was to the Genocide Museum which I suppose is like the Holocaust museum in DC, hard to go to but necessary to honor and learn about what took place. We won't go into detail about it here other than to say 2 million people died, neighbor killing neighbor, simply because of an old distinction. Hutus were people with 10 or more cows. Tutsis had less than 10 cows. Ridiculous. Read about it sometime as we shouldn't ever let these things happen again...yet they do.
After this, we had a two plus hour drive to the Ugandan border. Do you sense a theme of a lot of sitting so far? You should. The drive was actually pretty interesting as the country is quite lush, at times reminding us of Hawaii or some areas of Peru. There were also lots of the aforementioned people walking along the road, with the women wearing beautiful colors, men in everything from suits and ties to jeans, and waving children.
Crossing the border was somewhat bizarre. Eric couldn't go over so there was another driver (Alfred we would later learn) who would meet us on the other side. First, we had to go to immigration or customs and get our passports stamped. From there, we had to go to the police station (a small hut like a taxi stand really) right before the barrier and they also checked our passports. It was then like a prisoner exchange as we walked from Rwanda into Uganda, from the arms of one guide to another. On the Uganda side, we first had to go to their police station (a slightly bigger hut) and again get our passports looked at, although he also asked us what we did. He then gave us a small torn off piece of paper with no writing on it and told us to take it to their customs. We did that and purchased our visas but only after we were able to dig up crisp newish bills.
Alfred let us know that the "fast" road to Bwindi was washed out due to all the recent rain. We would have to take the longer route which would take 3.5 hours. He was right. But what he didn't tell us was that 2.5 hours of that were on dirt roads that were quite windy and bumpy. Similar to Rwanda, Uganda did have a lot of good scenery, with both people and mountains. We saw lots of boys carrying big canisters. Alfred asked if we knew what was in them. Water was our first guess. That was wrong. It was beer. Apparently the local, home-brewed beer is quite strong. It is why they have so many speed bumps and why we saw a lot of crowds milling about certain buildings. All weekend is party time.
We got to our camp, Gorilla Sanctuary Lodge, at close to 8. It is beautiful, with 8 tents. We are in Warbler. It was also too dark for us to see anything other than what was in front of us illuminated with our flashlights or in the lighted buildings. There is a big open hut with a lounge type area, a bar and a dining room. There is also a small gift shop where you can charge your devices. The tents have electricity but no plugs. Everything runs on generators. And the tents are gorgeous - a nice porch with a table and chairs, two big comfortable beds, a great shower and a huge bathtub. Ian, the general manager, gave us a briefing about what to expect tomorrow. We had a great dinner and then went to our tent, as we had an early wake up. Both of us fell asleep rather quickly even with a loud cricket outside our tent. Noises outside woke us up around 1 AM. Moira swears she heard footsteps and thought it was gorillas (Alfred later told her that there were gorillas right above the camp...and we heard them in the morning so it was possible). (Moira here... they were either gorillas or a pack of something nocturnal wanting to mess with me. My heart was racing and i didn't want to get up to use the bathroom!) But what kept us awake some scratching on the tent. Who knows what it was but the tents are sturdy. Maybe the Ugandan version of a raccoon?
Our wake up call was coffee delivered to our tent with a "hello!" outside. Not a bad way to wake up. After breakfast we headed to the staging area for gorilla hikes. You need to have a permit which often had to be bought months in advance (ours was purchased in July) as they only allow 40 people to go per day, max of 8 in a group. A ranger named David gave us an overview and told us we should have hiking boots (check), pants tucked into our socks (check) and a walking stick (check). There was a group of Germans wearing Converse without sticks and only two had pants long enough to tuck in. Luckily, they weren't on our trek. We were on trek M which was going to see a family of 7 gorillas which was a longer hike. There were only two others on the hike...our Canadian doppelgängers if we were taller and thinner. But really we got lucky as they were nice, normal woman who travel together around the works like we do. They were fit so we were all able to go at a good pace. We had a tracker, a guide (Rita) and an intern (no joke). We also hired porters to carry our backpacks which sounds lazy but is actually quite helpful. It is encouraged to help the local economy as well.
We hiked up about an hour and 45 minutes. The first part of the hike was on a path but then it got very jungle like. Trackers were out earlier to try to spot them ahead of time. They then radio to Rita the best route up, which consists of the tracker with us cutting vines and plants with a machete type thing...or maybe an actual machete. A few people had recommended that we buy gaiters which are things that attach to the bottom of your boots and go over your pants. They keep out the bugs and ants and also keep you dry. Moira also got a suggestion that we buy gloves so she picked us up some last minute. It was a great purchase as we had to grab onto things for leverage and it turns out gorillas like to eat and be near prickly things.
When we got near the gorillas, we separated from our porters and were told to not eat or drink anything and to be very quiet. We followed the advance trackers who were cutting through the bush, following the sounds of rustling leaves and branches breaking. And then they parted the brush and we saw our first gorilla! I believe it was one of the females. She wasn't very visible but we kept going in and got great views of a larger female who wasn't very happy. She was in heat and no one was coming to her aid. We watched her and took pictures until she went into the bush again. She actually charged a bit at the trackers in her bad mood but Rita said she knows them so wasn't a threat. There was one point where we all averted out eyes though so she wouldn't feel threatened. We came upon a bigger female who practically posed for us and provided great pics and video opportunities. The youngest member of the group (a 4 year old male) was hiding up in the tree and wouldn't let us get good glimpses of him. But the best was the big daddy, who was a young silverback whose back was still coming in, finally emerged from hiding (he actually crashed through the branches on his way down) and walked right by us! We had to press ourselves against the side of the path to allow him to pass. We watched him for awhile so close up. It was amazing.
This all took an hour and a half which was pretty unusual that we could watch that long. We hiked back down, stopping to eat our lunches along the way. We got back to the road around 2 PM to find that poor Alfred's jeep was stuck in the mud and water. A contingent of about 20 villagers was trying to help him dig and push out. Somehow, a tow rope arrived and he was pulled out, with mud splattering everywhere. We went back to the ranger station, got our certificate of completion and made it back to the camp before the rain started.
Today has been uneventful as it has essentially consisted of driving from Bwindi back to Kigali. But there was one thing of note. Alfred stopped in a town, or really a city here, of about 300,000 called Kabale. We were walking around a little and heard children reciting in a nursery school. The place was packed and the kids were so cute, wearing uniforms and waving to us from the open windows. We didn't want to interrupt them but the teacher came out and said we could go in. Before we were able to do that, all the kids started running out, wanting to hug us and touch our hands. We gave them high fives and hugs. They were so adorable. The teacher gave us permission to take their picture and then they wanted to see our cameras so they could see themselves.
A few other things:
- In Uganda, you drive on the left side of the road (it was under British rule until 1962) while in Rwanda, you drive on the right like in the US. Uganda is 7 hours ahead the US while Rwanda (and Namibia our next stop) is 6 hours ahead.
- We lucked out with weather for once. It rained the three days before we got to Bwindi so we had the first clear day in awhile.
- Moira said she felt like Sandy Pittman at Everest, minus her espresso machine when we hired the porters.
- Uganda has the largest gorilla population in the world.
- When we were being led out of the jungle by the trackers dressed in army green and carrying guns, it felt looked like we had been captured by the rebel forces.
- Tea is the largest cash crop in Uganda and is pretty prevalent in Rwanda too. We also saw bananas, coffee and cabbage.
- The staff at the Gorilla Sanctuary Lodge was so friendly. They all came down to wish us safe journey as they say here. If you ever go to Uganda, go visit them and tell Ian, the general manager, we sent you.
Finally, excuse any typos as this was written on the iPad.
1 comment:
Absolutely LOVE the title of this blog!
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