Nyiragongo Volcano, the most active volcano in Africa and the largest lava lake in the world.
So its official, I have been to the Democratic Republic of Congo as I promised myself… and more to the point the volcano trek was above and beyond what I expected. Expensive but I definitely think money well spent.
It started early…. went the whole 1km to the Rwanda/Congo border. Lets say it took about 2 hours to actually get into Congo, plus this is forgetting the fact that I had to pay an extraordinary rate to fast track my visa as surprise surprise the tourism board from Kinshasa never got back to me in the 7 days promised…. NOT EVEN THE 12 days! Grrrr.
However, after running round some super markets and buying some food and spirits (always good when near a lava crater) we finally turned up. Some others had been waiting for us for 2 hours…oppsss, but genuinely not our fault. I blame the guy at the Congo entry area for writing our names and passport numbers at an extraordinarily slow rate and Amahoro tours, of which after the mess up and more to read in this blog, I DO NOT recommend them.
Thankfully (especially after trying to sleep that night and knowing how windy it really was) some people dropped out of our group so me and the 3 others that had been destined to camp were actually given the cabins to sleep in.
The walk started slowly, with gradual climb, nice forest and then it got steeper and steeper. I was prepared for quite a slog of a trek, and it really was that towards the end. Once at more than 3000m it was starting to be hard to breath and last 300m to the summit (3500m) were actually nearly soul destroying. Thankfully it only rained a little on the way up (although we could hear the thunder the whole way and I was just hoping it didn’t have a storm like the day before) and once there, wow. The view of the lava was just mesmerising. I still cannot get over it. We all stared for hours. It moved around, cracked in different places, the red intensified then spurted out and moved on. The sound was loud it really did sound like waves, roaring.
We drank the local booze we had bought and also some red wine. It didn’t take long until we were all a little tipsy at the altitude. And for some strange reason we all insisted in sitting and taking photos where the Chinese woman had fallen into the crater to her death, symbolised by a cross. However we all did survive. When the sun set the lava became even more intense, I couldn’t help stare for such a long time. The photos really cannot match up to the fact you were so close and staring at red hot lave from the centre of the earth. The cabins were right on the edge of the crater, it was so so windy, I don’t think I would have slept I a tent, well to be fair in the cabin I kept waking thinking it was going to blow off the edge of the crater.
At 5.30am we were woken and watched the run rise over Rwanda and the other nearby volcanoes, it was very pretty yet still bloody freezing. The walk down I knew was going to kill me, but I had no choice. Since I had done the gorilla trekking I had hurt my foot in someway, I don’t remember doing it, and there are no marks or swelling, but GOD IT HURTS. So after a little paracetamol I set off down hill, you have to remember you are basically walking on a moving surface as it is just lava pebbles on a very steep hill, many people slipped. I was glad to get to the bottom.
That aside though I was unable to spend the afternoon walking round Goma as I was just a hobbling mess. So got lift back to Rwanda, although a little sad as I had been invited to a UN birthday party in Goma, but I know one day I will return and really explore this city and maybe its surroundings.
Nyiragongo Volcano you blew my mind!!!!!
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