It Takes a Village
It’s good to know when you’re an hour deep into the rainforest, in a heavy rainstorm, on a barely passable dirt road mud channel, there’s a village happy to help you out when you get stuck in the mud.
Adrift in a Sea of Rolling Hills
My time in the Pays des Mille CollinesArchive for Travel
Picture Perfect Africa
This week we took a ride to the Akagera Game Park in Western Rwanda. We saw quite a few animals and some amazing African landscapes. Quintessential Africa.
A Baboon Stole My Lunch
At Akagera, we went to check out some hippos, left the windows open, and returned to find a Baboon with our lunch in hand.
Here he is just after the grab.
He retreats to a safe space.
Looks both ways.
Digs in.
But which one to eat first?
I guess the first two weren’t good enough for him. Ah, at least he’s happy.
Monkey Business
Rwanda is no bigger than the state of Maryland in size, but with all due respect to the Chesapeake, it’s staggering how much this tiny place has to offer. There are, of course, its world famous mountain gorillas. The volcanic mountains it shares with Uganda and Congo are one of the only places in the world to find the mountain gorilla. Venture west to Akagera Game Park and you’ll find zebras, hippos, giraffes, antelope, crocodiles, elephants, and even the occasional lion. At it’s eastern end is Lake Kivu, a stunning view that is one of the 20 largest freshwater bodies in the world. And to the South you’ll find Africa’s largest montane rainforest, home to chimpanzees and a score of other monkey species, and, for a couple days, me and my trekking buddies.
We began our adventure with a 430am appointment with the chimps of Nyungwe rainforest. After a one and one half hour drive along a muddied, barley passable dirt road, past rolling hills of breathtaking tea plantations, deep into the rainforest, we set out on foot to trek a family of chimps. An hour or so into the forest, we found our first chimp, resting high in the trees, and soon the chorus of hoots and calls filled our ears. We trekked deeper and found a young chimp and its mother and trees shook back and forth as several more swung through the tree tops.
We went to see the chimps, but it was the sounds and smells of the rainforest that most fascinated me. The rain dropping, the insects creeking, the trees rustling, the birds chirping, it’s a soothing and blissful orchestra that hits its crescendo with the calls of the chimps. It’s easy to see why they put these sounds on alarm clocks. Your senses come alive with the crisp mountain air and the flowing scents of green, dewey life. How extraordinary it is to close your eyes, pique your ears, and breathe deeply in. We share 95% of our genetic code with the chimps, but, standing there, you have to wonder where in that other 5% it made sense to leave this tropical paradise.
We followed our trek with a drive to Rwanda’s Eastern edge and sweeping views of beautiful Lake Kivu, Rwanda’s border with Congo. The drive took us along sweeping valleys and steep hillsides of tea plantations where the trees grow almost horizontally at points. I was awed by the poetic sightlines of the plantations of tea trees that share the hills with rainforest in this corner of this country. We finally ventured to the very edge of Rwanda, before turning back at the Congo border crossing.
The next morning we set out before the park office opened to take a trail to a waterfall 5km into the forest. As the trail opened up into a vast tea plantation, we found ourselves hopelessly lost trying to find the entrance to the forest. Up and down the hills of tea we trekked, but the waterfall proved elusive. We returned to find the park rangers upset and angry that we had entered the park with paying and without a guide. When we told them we never passed the tea trees, we laughed it off and all was okay.
I guess I’ll have to save the waterfall for next time.