Safari weekend

On Friday, Jean-Marc – also Anne’s boyfriend (little sidenote: he’s still married but trying to get a divorce and his wife is ok with all that, LOL) - picked me up around noon. Andre and Inge, a Belgian couple, had arranged a safariweekend with him and invited me to tag along when I met them at Lydie’s place in Shyogwe. We set off towards the East of Rwanda, Akagera National Park.

Akagera Lodge
We arrived there early in the afternoon and all three of us hoped to visit the park already, but Jean-Marc had others plans and dropped us off at Akagera Park Lodge. A very expensive and way overrated hotel that overlooks the stunning Lake Ihema and the boarders of Tanzania. Andre & Inge checked in, I joined Jean-Marc (JM) to the local village for drinks, food and my low-budget lodge.

Local hangout
When we were supposed to look for my accommodation in the little village, Jean-Marc took me and his friends from the hotel to the only bar in town. I had lots of fanta ikonge, they had lots of beer (those 750ml bottles!). We ate very tasty goat-brochettes and grilled chicken for lunch. My little toilet-stop was some kind of adventure. A small shack, with only a hole and rainpipe in the middle of it, served as the toilet. The stains on the wall suggested they were done with ‘natural materials’ so to say. The smartest thing to do was not to touch anything, keep balance, don’t breathe and get out of there asap!’You wanted the ultimate African experience,’ the guys laughed afterwards.

Tricky deal
When we were in the little village, I kind of realized that I wasn’t going to find a nice place to stay. Only three houses were provided with electricity. There was the bar and a shop. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any other place to stay apart from the expensive Akagera Lodge or the equally overrated campsite inside the park. Jean-Marc however, said he had made arrangements for me. In the end, the only ‘low-budget option’ I had was to share his room. He had bargained for it at the reception desk with his friends so they would keep their mouths shut. Despite the fact I didn’t have to pay anything - because he wanted to support my work - I didn’t like this kind of deal at all. Especially because he forced me to ‘lie’ to my fellow Belgian travelers, which made me uncomfortable. He also offered me to go to Tanzania, Zanzibar, all free of charge. He’d even pay my visa, flights and accommodation.

At that point, he came across as a sleezy businessman. Not sure why, but I didn’t trust him completely. All this free stuff made me wonder about what he wanted in return. He said it was to support my work and studies, but all for free seemed tricky to me. Plus, when I asked him about random stuff, like his relationship, he didn’t even want to admit to it and when I asked him if he loved Anne, the Belgian doctor, I knew enough from the look on his face. When we talked about these things when the other couple was there though, it was as if they’ve been together forever.

My gutfeeling told me he needed the network of doctors and expats for his travel business. Because they all send family & friends and he makes a lot of money with this group of ‘rich muzungus’. I guess part of him is real, the other part is strictly business. I must admit he’s not all bad and I’m sure he’s got proper business contacts, knows how to ‘fix’ things and is very helpful. He didn’t ask me for anything and he offered me his help whenever I had a problem during my stay here. So he’s forgiven for the cheeky deal at the hotel. I do owe a very big thank you to Andre & Inge, who covered all costs of food and drinks at the hotel. I surely didn’t expect that kind of support, but they insisted.

Workers’ village
Since we were still quite full after the late lunch, we only took some soup for dinner back at the hotel and said our goodbyes. Andre & Inge went to bed, JM and I went to the workers village nextdoor. All the guides, security officers and hotel staff live in this village. They even have a recreational area and small bar and rumour has it that a small school will be build as well. Something that worries me, because in the end, the village will become bigger and bigger and eventually become a real small town, which means more loss for the park.

Funny anecdote; One of the guys that worked at the hotel was called Sabena. He never knew what it meant until a Belgian tourist mentioned the origin of his name. He was quite surprised when he found out he was named after the former Belgian national airline! Mystery solved. Sabena told me the hotel and the workers’ village was in the middle of leopard and buffalo territory. More than once they encountered a leopard on their way back from work, and it still frightened people. JM told the funniest story ever, about how he bumped into this leopard, thought ‘oh no, he will eat me’ and thanked God for his life. His gestures that accompanied the story were hilarious.

We shared stories and JM told me we could leave at any given time. When I did so, he said in a strange way ‘so you want us to go now and I should leave half a bottle of beer? If that is what you want we can do that.’ As if to make me feel ‘guilty’ or something. He even ordered a second beer! Almost one hour later than agreed, we left. I went to bed, extremely tired and he went off again. He came back very late at night and to my feeling quite drunk which I really didn’t like at all.

Never awake a sleeping lion
Something that bothers me overhere is the fact that people do not respect others. They assume everyone’s awake when they’re awake and don’t hesitate to shout or sing early in the morning, slamming doors or gates. Same at night. Everyone who knows me, knows me well enough to know they really shouldn’t wake me when I’m asleep. JM came back into the room, slammed the door, switched on all the lights and yelled at me, something about my camera ‘if it was really mine and if I wanted to keep it’ and ‘look at me, look at me!’ in a quite agressive way. I got a bit scared, pretended I didn’t hear it and hoped he’d go to bed asap, which he did. I did sort of ask him about it the other day, but he pretended to haven’t said much at all.

Boattrip
On Saturday morning, we had a delicious breakfast at the hotel and set out on our first tour with our guide Cecile. She suggested we’d do a big tour and a shorter one on Sunday, but for some reason (too much beer and too little sleep???) JM didn’t want to do that.

We saw lots of impala, topi and even giraffes, hippo’s and a small Nile crocodile. We went back to the lodge for lunch and set out on a boattrip in the afternoon to look for elephants, hippo and crocs. Normally, tourists travel on the lake with the small boats the guides conduct, but JM organised the big private yacht the hotel owns to impress us - or at least the doctors. Although he claimed one of those little boats got engine problems once and they were surrounded by hippos, which made him never enter one of this little boats again.

We met Mutware which means ‘chef’ in Kinyarwanda, a solitary elephant and quite agressive according to locals, who was swimming in the lake. The boattrip was relaxing, with some amazing views, but didn’t add any value to the safari. They charge extra for it and in the end it’s very polluting which is quite unacceptable for a National Park I think. We arrived back at the lodge in the afternoon and that was it for the day. Even the couple wondered why he was always so eager to get back so early. Since I wasn’t feeling too good, I took a long nap until dinnertime.

The Lionking
I thought the entire story was completely made up by Disney, but the names actually have a real background. They have been translated from Swahili, a widely spoken language in the area in Africa. Some examples of the words I remember;

simba - lion
tembo - elephant
pongo - bushbuck (some sort of antilope)

Poor gameview
The second night wasn’t as terrible as the first one, but I was getting more sick. We got up at 5.30am to leave at 6.30am, but ‘all of a sudden’, JM decided to check on the car. I found this unacceptable because he dropped us off the other day at 4pm to hurry himself to the local bar with his friends and now, from one day to the other, there was a problem with the motoroil. The levels were normal, but he wanted to make sure he had a reserve and had to look for motoroil in a dusty old garage at the hotel. Towards us, he made the impression of being concerned of our well-being and the smooth operation of the car, but I found thought of it as a lame show.

When that was done, we had to ‘catch up with lost time’, so he drove us like a madman through the park. I sat in the very back, but got so nauteous as the heat in the car accumulated since we had to keep windows closed to prevent annoying horseflies from entering the car. The bumpy road and the speed of driving made me almost throw up. We often drove too fast to notice any animals and by the time he stopped the car, the animals took off. There was no open roof, the windows didn’t work so taking pictures was impossible from the backseat.

By lunchtime we had crossed the entire park already! On one of the plains we vaguely saw a couple of elephants, but he didn’t bother finding another route to get closer. We just continued. Whenever the guide saw some animal, JM repeated it as if he was the all-knowing park ranger. Anyway, he’s overall a nice guy, but you can tell he’s been in the military and still has some things to learn. Very unlike the African nature, he’s always in a hurry and that’s one thing that tourists don’t want to be whenever they’re on a holiday.

Food for thought
After we left the safaripark, we said our goodbyes to Cecile and headed back towards Kigali. Everyone took a nap in the car and I was able to sleep a bit to diminish the nausea. Somewhere halfway between Kayonza and Kigali, we stopped at a restaurant where JM paid us a lovely lunch of grilled chicken with fries. I think I never had more chicken and fries than during my time here! Although I have drastically cut back on food, especially meat.

After the delicious fingerfood, we made a final stop at Sam’s place. He’s the son of the couple who lives here and works for BTC, some sort of Belgian NGO. JM drove me to the busstation where I awaited another one hour bustrip back to Gitarama, where I couldn’t get any hot water for a refreshing shower. So all dusty and with a bad cold, I went to bed.

Evaluation
My overall opinion on the park is disappointment. The fees are complex and the costs add up while you’re there. First you need a private vehicle and a driver to get to the park. There are no jeeps provided, so if you are a backpacker you need to rent one for 150USD per day. The lodge costs around 200USD per night, but JM was able to arrange a discounted rate of 140USD per night. On top of that are all the expenses of food & drinks and picnic, since there isn't any other place to go.

Upon arrival, you pay a general entrance fee and then a fee for each day of gameviewing. That’s 50USD for non-residents and I was lucky enough to get a reduction as a student and paid 40USD. Add another 2000RWF (5USD) for the car (if it has a foreign registration number it’s even more) and 100USD for the yacht. The other boats would’ve been 30USD per person (which made JM decide we might as well take the yacht) and because we dropped the guide off at the north entrance, we had to pay another 24 000RWF (41USD) for a taxi and a tip. Even that has not been arranged by the park nor the driver.

That last part can be questioned as he decided to change the routing, but from a general point of view, this is how things are organised overhere. The tourism industry aims for the rich people and expats and doesn’t make it much accessible to others such as youth or backpackers. All this was better organised in South-Africa, without loss of employment, but a successful business that reached a broader range of tourists. I will discuss this with the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in Kigali, which recently took over responsabilities of the Office Rwandais du Tourisme et Parc Nationaux (ORTPN). I will meet up with the department of Tourism and Conservation, but first I need to get a research permit to get access to data, statistics and information. Another 80USD…

As from Monday, it’s back to business. All this has provided me with valuable information for my magazine, so can't wait to get started on it.

Friday 11th – Sunday 13th March - Akagera 28 degrees.