Wonders of Nature

After a very successful first tour I was more than excited about our little pioneering adventure on Friday and other wonders of nature on Saturday.

Day 2 – Exploring the unexplored
On Friday Hassan and I took an early start and met at 6.45am to take the bus towards the Ugandan border at Cyanika, about 25km from Ruhengeri. We got off at Kidaho, the last Rwandan town before reaching the border. Our plan today was to cross Lakes Burera and Ruhondo using public transport and hike where possible. According to the Bradt travel guide, no one has ever attempted doing this and I wanted to be the first one!

From Kidaho we walked about an hour to the lakeshore of Burera in the Busangabo area. To my surprise I met the five Belgian girls from my year in secondary school again. They’d spent the night by the lake and although it’s not in any guide yet, there are camping possibilities. Our original plan was to take a motorboat to the Rusumo waterfalls, but the motorboat was out of service and the weather didn’t look too promising. Hassan negotiated a canoe for us and two strong men offered to sail us down south to Mwiko. Halfway down, the weather caught up on us and it started pouring down. Me being the fully equipped tourist was only half soaked compared to my fellowship. Luckily the sun came out and in terms of high-speed drying the African sun does its job.

After 1,5 hours we reached the shores at Mwiko and started our climb to the luxurious Virunga Lodge at Kinike. We left the lodge aside but enjoyed beautiful views over Lake Burera. We crossed the hill at Bavu and decended towards Ntaruka, a small village near Lake Ruhondo. It’s a tiny town that has only one – very bad – ‘restaurant’. Having local food adds up to the experience and it’s a great resting point, but not if it makes you sick. The hike from Lake Burera to Lake Ruhondo took about 3 hours. Once at Lake Ruhondo, we could see our final destination Foyer de Charite on top of a steep hill, but the only boat available was waiting for passengers on the other side of the lake. It was an immense disappointment, cause we were so close to our goal. The boattrip in a motorboat would’ve been another 30 minutes and then a steep climb to the top from where we’d take a moto towards the main road and a bus back to Ruhengeri. It wouldn’t have been more than 2 hours to complete. Instead, we went back to the village of Ntaruka where two motobikes took us to the main road at Nabiho and we caught the bus to Ruhengeri.

The trip is a great alternative for Volcanoes National Park for those who enjoy beautiful sceneries, love to hike and are looking for a full day package with a variety on activities without paying tons of money. It’s perfectly feasible by using public means and can be done by almost anyone but you need a guide who speaks the local language to negotiate fares and call the boatsmen in advance to make sure they’re there to pick you up.

After a long and exhausting but incredible nice day, Hassan took me to the muslim area of Mwimbireshi in Ruhengeri for dinner. Mama Shinwa cooked us a traditional Rwandan meal of cassava bread made of bugari (cassava flour) and isombe, the cassava-leaves with onion. We ate food with our hands in a small shack and had delicious but deadly sweet Chai-tea for dessert. What a perfect day, all natural and community based!

Day 3 – Beekeeping and medicinal garden
Scoring two out of three, I was convinced that our tour on Saturday would be equally successful. Once again we walked to a nearby village where we met Theophile, beekeeper and traditional healer. Those expecting a voodoo man with animal skulls dangling from his waist and feathers up his ass would’ve been very disappointed. Theophile was the most charming and welcoming man, who explained everything there needed to be explained on beekeeping and the link to traditional medicine.

We visited him in a small house which served as office and demonstration area. The tradition of beekeeping and honey harvesting for medicinal means used to be passed from generation to generation. Nowadays, the beekeepers are organised in an association called Abunganirana. The association makes sure that all ancient knowledge is documented and they do intensive research to the healing characteristics of plants and how the bees fit into that plan.

The association has a large farm in Ruhengeri and another one at Kinigi, where they test the influence of the rich, iron-holding volcanic soil on the plants and the bees. They also compare the use of the square modern beehives to the round traditional hives. Theophile owns 46 modern ones and 200 traditional ones of which he showed us a couple at the demonstration area. A traditional hive gives about 3kg of honey, a modern one up to 20kg, depending on the area. The rest of the hives are kept far away from civilisation in order to protect the villagers. Harvesting season is between June and August, the dry season.

In their traditional gardens, the beekeepers grow plants such as Hagenia, Propolis, Ginseng, Eucalyptus, Castro and Aloe Vera. The bees thrive on many of these powerful plants and as such, create honey which contains a mix of all the good characteristics of those plants. Very different from any kind of honey we buy in stores.

The honey can be used in many ways. A spoonful orally or mixed in tea or porridge would do wonders to your intestines and other internal issues. It can also be used mixed with neutral bodycream such as vaseline for woundhealing or scar softening. When cutting an umbilical cord for instance, they would put honey on the end as anti-bacterial treatment. A honey based bandage would be used in the same way on open wounds.

Theophile’s children are still young but already interested in their father’s occupation and probably heading in the same direction. Despite the fact that Theophile is training them little by little, he’s very happy the association teaches the new generation all they need to know and keeps on developing new techniques through the research facilty to follow up on the results of this alternative science. Ancient techniques still used in modern times, it must have proven to be worthwile to keep and right they are.

It got me quite curious and I wanted to buy some of this magical honey. However, it not being harvesting season just yet and with no reserves left, Theophile said chances were minimal he’d be able to find some leftovers, but promised to go and look for it. On our way out, Hassan showed me a watersource which had natural sparkling water opborrelen. I always thought that soda water was spring water with carbondioxide added to it, but here it was discovered in a natural form in the early 1900’s by a German duke. Amazing, but unfortunately not as much respected by the locals who threw plastics in it.

Back in town after another interesting morning, Hassan and I had a nice lunch of goatbrochettes and jacket potatoes in a local bar to conclude a fantastic three days. After saying our goodbyes, I was ready and very much looking forward to meeting my friends Charlotte, Sue and Brittany again for an Easter-reunion!Gorillas or no gorillas, that is the question.

Friday April 22nd – Saturday April 23rd, Ruhengeri (Musanze)