Arie Goes to Ruhengeri

This is from day two of my trip to Rwanda. You may want to start at the beginning.

My wildlife preferences lean toward the "mostly lies around, chases and eats antelope, possibly has a golden mane" variety, so I was going to skip gorilla trekking entirely to concentrate on large cats. But everyone I met who had gone said that it was amazing (usually in a quiet, deep voice while looking straight into my eyes), and who am I to argue with everyone? So in early December I emailed Rwanda's tourism office asking for a gorilla permit. They offered some dates and I chose Friday, December 19th. Normally you wire them the money ($500) in advance, but it was late enough that they said I could just show up.

Viewing gorillas in Rwanda requires one to go to Rwanda ("When you go to Rwanda, first you must travel there, and once you are there, you have arrived."). I arrived in Kigali, the capital, on Wednesday, December 17. I had the airport taxi take me straight to the Rwandan tourism office to confirm that I actually had a permit waiting. Everyone said permits were really hard to get, so I was a little skeptical that I had basically reserved one via email with no down payment on two weeks notice during the high season. Sure enough, they didn't seem to have any idea of who I was and why I was waving money at them, but it didn't matter because they had spare permits for that day. It turns out that gorilla trekking is way down -- normally almost half the visitors are from the United States (about a thousand per month), so U.S. economic problems hit gorilla trekking pretty hard. (All gorilla trekking in Congo is currently halted because rebels have taken the Virungas, but there isn't much spillover I guess.)

Thursday morning, after visiting the Kigali genocide memorial, I went back to my hotel, picked up my bag, and headed to the Nyabugogo taxi park (pictured), which looked very similar to Kampala's except it was cleaner and better organized. Lonely Planet said that Onatracom Express was probably the best company, so I walked into their offices and found out that the next bus wasn't leaving until 2pm (it was about noon). Perfect; I bought a ticket, got lunch across the street, and came back at 1pm to sit and wait.

I didn't have to wait for long. Within maybe five minutes a large bus pulled up and one of the people waiting told me to go get on. I figured, sure, and did. Sure enough, over the next hour the bus filled up. I was happy to get on early because it meant choice of seats -- I chose a window seat so that I could take countryside photos.

Sitting on the bus for an hour waiting was interesting because of the large number of vendors that sell things to people who are sitting on buses waiting. Amongst the many things on offer were things that made sense for a long bus ride -- bread and water, soda, juice, biscuits, and candy -- and things that didn't -- jackets, shirts, perfume, soap, shampoo, eggs. The guys selling eggs also had little bottles of pepper oil, I don't know what that's about. I think the eggs were hardboiled.

There weren't any other white people on the bus or even at the bus station. I got a lot of attention -- all the vendors were shouting "mzungu!" in addition to the normal hissing, which is apparently how they signal that they would like to sell something. The people on the bus were also curious why there was a white guy there, and one guy, John, came and sat down and we chatted for most of the ride (his broken English was better than my much more broken French).

Eventually the bus started and off we went. I was a little concerned about the bus ride because Rwanda is basically a country made of hills with thin winding roads around them, but the roads were in excellent shape (some even had guardrails!) and the bus driver drove slowly and safely. I was really surprised. (It turns out that Onatracom is government-owned, maybe that's why.)

Rwanda is a beautiful country. I couldn't stop taking photographs, and now I have about two hundred photos of terraced farms with faded hills rising in the background. Finally John said, "you really like mountains, yes?" Yes.

As with walking around and sitting on the bus, a mzungu on a moving bus is instant excitement. Virtually every child we passed would see me and get excited and wave (and I'd wave back and then they'd get really excited and usually shout "mzungu!"). The other people on the bus were also curious about me -- one young child kept toddling over and staring at me. She didn’t speak any English, so we were reduced to standard adult-child interaction -- peek-a-boo, making faces, high fives, etc. Some other people also asked me questions that John translated, mostly about why I was in Rwanda. One of the girls, Jillian, borrowed my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel for the ride.

The bus stopped for a few minutes for a snack, but failed to do an adequate headcount so we almost drove away without someone -- as we pulled away someone heard him yelling. We drove through a bunch more hills and some more tiny towns. As we approached Ruhengeri, John invited me to visit his village, which he said was right on the border with Congo. He took my cell phone number and, at Jillian's insistence, my email address.

Rwanda is a very hilly country except in the extreme southeast, where it meets the Tanzanian plains. The largest hills are in the northwest, where the gorillas are. As you approach the region, the hills get higher and higher and finally you start seeing giant mountains -- volcanoes -- in the distance.

Finally we pulled into Ruhengeri. I went to Tourist Rest House, where I had reserved a room, but the room didn't look very nice, so I took a moto up to Hotel Muhabura. (One moto driver asked for 3000 francs ($5.50), I walked away and found one who drove me for 300, a reasonable price for a short trip.)

Hotel Muhabura is very, very nice. It was apparently Dian Fossey's home when she wasn't living in the forest. The staff are friendly and the rooms were excellent. No complaints at all.

After checking in I walked over to the Rwandan tourism office down the street to make sure that I knew what to do the next day. The office turned out to be a guy in a small room and he spoke little English and had no idea what was going on. I left. (Among the many errors in Lonely Planet is the claim that you have to show up at this office at 7am for the gorilla trek. Actually it's the office in Kinigi.)

So basically it turns out that you need transportation, which means you need someone to drive you from the park headquarters to wherever the gorillas are, and then wait there for a few hours, and then drive you back. This is a bit of a racket, and the going rate is currently $80. So OK, I called a tourism agency and they said they'd pick me up the next day at 6:15.

At the hotel I met some interesting people, including a guy who teaches agriculture at a nearby university. One of the things he told me is that the UN is fairly unpopular here -- they have a habit of driving in the middle of the road full speed and forcing everyone else off -- usually into ditches. People throw rocks at them. Apparently it's worse in the Congo -- the UN has been implicated in diamond and coltan smuggling (their planes don't get searched) and they were getting so many Congolese soldiers killed that a group of widows and wives finally lined up on a road near Goma to block a military convoy. The UN fired on them.

He also told me that the (endangered) crested crane is highly sought after by poachers because it mates for life and is thus traditionally used to help troubled relationships. A minor problem is said to be cured by eating the eggs and feathers, while major problems require you to eat the bird's beak and feet.

I broke my own rule by having dinner at the hotel, but I wanted to get a full night's sleep. (Also it's the best restaurant in town.) Sure enough, I was out by 8:30.

You might want to read about my actual gorilla trek.