Jurassic Park

(Almost) last but not least! Brittany joined me on my last trip in Rwanda: hiking in Nyungwe Forest. This National Park lies in the south of Rwanda, adjacent to Burundi in the south and DRC in the west. It’s also the passage to Cyangugu, the third town on Lake Kivu after Gisenyi and Kibuye and the furthest away in the whole of Rwanda. As Goma is the next big town across the border in the north, so is Bukavu in the south. Thinking the trails would be quite the adventure, we actually had the biggest adventure in our lives starting from the busride from Kigali to getting back to Butare.

A non-existing guesthouse
After a chaotic morning of packing, last goodbyes here and there and grocery shopping we left around 3pm on the last bus to Nyunge. Passing Gitarama and Butare as last big town, it took us another 3,5 hours through the forest to reach Gisakura on the other side. The bus dropped us off at 9.30pm in front of the Gisakura Tea Estate, where we had booked our accommodation. While getting off, a nice guy on a motobike pulled over and asked us what we were doing out there. Explaining him we were heading towards our lodge, he bluntly said that the guesthouse there didn’t exist anymore and closed down two years ago. So there we were, in the middle of nowhere in Africa, no clue where we were or where to go to, in the pitch dark and close to midnight. Lucky for us, this happened in Rwanda, the safest country on the continent and not in any other African country where we would’ve been mugged, raped and even killed within five minutes.

A bug’s life
Strangely enough, when I called up, a woman took the reservation and was expecting us that night. The man who found us out there worked for RDB in the National Park and phoned her to double check. According to this woman, the guesthouse had moved to the village a bit further. We walked half an hour to town and ended up in a place nothing like a guesthouse, but still advertising hot showers and charging a lot of money for it. The rooms were moulded and infested with bugs, the shower looked more like a veal pen, the toilet was a hole in the ground without any toiletpaper or water to rinse. At first we were just staring at our room, with mouths wide open. But as soon as we had to go to the toilet, we were laughing so hard about the madness in which we got there and then the hell where we ended up in. Brittany suddenly ran out of the toilet shack, after seeing millions of little bugs and flies, covering the walls. We ended up going in our ‘shower’ out of pure misery.

Run baby run
To keep costs as low as possible we shared a double bed and while Brittany was reading something I settled in bed until I saw a big ugly spider crawling up inside our mosquito net. We both jumped out and that was it, we weren’t going to sleep in this place. So around 11.30pm, we packed our bags, stole four bananas and sneaked out, running downhill, no clue where we were going, back to the village. We panicked for a second when two – possibly rabid – dogs roamed around the street and then three, well camouflaged military men, scared the hell out of us. We were able to contact another lodge in town, owned by the RDB tourism board. Three men came looking for us in the village and gave us a nice room with all basic amenities available. Just around midnight, we fell asleep in comfortable beds, under a mosquito net without spiders or bugs on the inside.

Waterfall Trail
After a delicious breakfast and a hot shower that morning, we set off on a dayhike, towards the biggest waterfall in the forest. We walked through a huge teaplantation which provides the leaves for the famous Rwandan Mountain tea. Apart from teaplantations there is little cultivation in the national park. Nyungwe is in fact what’s left of the original jungle that once covered the entire Central-African region. The rest has been cut down to make space for agriculture. It reminded me a bit of the jungle in Costa Rica, with similar vegetation.

Once we’d entered the jungle, we got stuck in a heavy thunderstorrn which lasted until noon. We were soaking wet by the time we reached the waterfall, but as we got moving the entire time, it wasn’t cold. In the end, it’s just water and it definitely didn’t stop us from going any further. The terrain wasn’t as slippery as in Volcanoes, apart from some rocks and steep slopes here and there. Around noon we reached the waterfall, which was beautiful and very powerful. We got very close to it and had a picnic nearby, with steep slopes behind us. Some of the trees had come down already. Suddenly we heard a loud crack and big rocks were falling down from above us. We shrieked and I ran for my life, trying to avoid one cracking my head open. At that point, I didn’t really care anymore about slippery rocks, I just ran as fast as I could. That was a pretty scary moment, but in terns of ‘fight or flight respons’ my reaction was pretty good.

It took us about six hours to complete the trail, which we had enjoyed very much. RDB was back in the good books after providing us with a very knowledgeble guide and excellent service. We hoped our next trail would be as pleasant as this one.

Cup of Tea?
On Saturday morning we tried to figure out a way how to get to Uwinka Visitor Center, the RDB office in the middle of the park. It was about 18km from the Gisakura estate and was the starting point of most trails. Because we didn’t have private transport, we decided to visit the Gisakura Tea Estate first and then sort out how to get there.

At the Gisakura Tea Estate, we got welcomed by manager Eric and head of teaproduction Robert. The factory was owned by the government, but got taken over by Indians two years ago who privatised it. Hence the fact we couldn’t find our lodge the other night. Still they were very willing to show us around in the factory. Robert took us through the many production levels, starting from fresh plucked tea leaves to quality control and transport of tea. It was a very interesting morning and a learning experience.

Canopy Walk
After the tea visit we started walking, hoping we could catch a ride with someone passing by. Since that could take ages, I said we’d hitchhike with the first truck or jeep that came along. And thus we did… The first truck to come along was a cattle truck, luckily without cattle but with the cowshit all over. We got a lift, sitting on a big tyre for more than half an hour. Of course we were the talk of town that day, passing all these roadworkers who had never ever seen two muzungus in the back of a cattletruck before. They all stopped to watch us go by and waived afterwards, still with their mouths wide open.

The ride left us with a soar bum, but we got to where we needed to be: Uwinka. I did ask our RDB fellow that morning whether we were all set for that day cause we had paid a three-day pass, and I got mine for free. They even said ‘oh, as a journalist, you should’ve had gorillas and all the parks for free, cause you’ve got a research permit’. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I didn’t even want to think too much about it or I would start screaming. The most important thing was that we wouldn’t have to come back to Gisakura for any stupid paper or form. Once there, our hopes of having the same service vanished right away after speaking to some other retard at reception. (Why do they always put retards behind the reception desk??) We paid 70USD which gave us access to three nature walks between 5-10km. We did one the day before and wanted to do a short one on the second day, adding a canopy walk to it. ‘No problem,’ is what they said. That’s what they always say, but once they’ve cashed your money, you’re on your own and stories change every five seconds.

We were told that – eventhough we paid for two extra long trails, trying to replace them by one short one – we had to pay an extra 60USD for the canopy. There’s actually a trail between 0-5km which has a canopy en route. The trail is nothing special, but the canopy is the main activity. ‘Not possible,’ they said, unless we paid 60USD on top. They even showed a pricelist, but the canopy wasn’t even mentioned on there, so I guess they said whatever, as long as they had some extra pocketmoney. I was able to do it for free, Britt had to stand by and watch us going. Very upsetting! Even when we asked a refund for the other two trails, we couldn’t even get that. That’s how it always goes around here. I did do the canopy and honestly, it wasn’t even worth 60USD. They tell you it’s a 200m bridge, it’s about 60m high above the trees and it takes 20min to cross. Nothing like that at all, you can easily do it under 10minutes and all together it’s probably not more than 130m long.The trail wasn’t that cool either, we did see some monkeys and big birds, but our waterfall trail the other day was ten times as cool.

We decided to do our own sort of hike back towards the hostel. It was too far to complete, but maybe halfway down we could catch a ride with someone. After a few meters outside of the park we got picked up already by two nice guys who dropped us off at our place. We didn’t feel like going back again on Sunday for another hike and decided to head back to Butare instead.

Thursday May 5th – Saturday May 7th, Nyungwe