DR Congo and Nyiragongo Volcano

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!!!!!

Pictures for Amboseli Safari

Decided that there were too many photos to add to the other blog, so Amboseli photos have they're own addition

From Kisoro to Rwanda and hopefully DRC!!!

Part two: photos in order

1. lake kivu at Kubuye (rwanda)

2. Lake Bunyoni (uganda)

3.the block of upgraded rooms I stayed in in Kibuye, lake Kive (rwanda)

4. more kibuye

5. the silver back that nearly walked into us (uganda Bwindi reserve)

6. last 3 photos .... amazing gorillas! (no im not a gorilla!)

The gorillas were unbelievable, we were very lucky as they were on the border of the national park, (2 days before some Norwegians had to trek 8 hours total) it only took 1 ½ hours to find them. They were so cool, they were literally all around us in bushes, up trees. WOW! At one point the leading Silverback male decided he wanted to walk exactly where we were, so all 7 of us were trying our hardest to move out the way. He was so close I could have touched him and he was bigger than I had expected. My photos are not the best as there was a lot of vegetation, however my memory of these animals will last forever.

So my Uganda trip has somehow turned into my Rwanda and DR Congo trip! After being at Lake Burnyoni less than 15 hours I was off again with an English couple to Rwanda. This meant traveling back the 2 and half hrs that I had come from yesterday, back to Kisoro and to the border. The border was the first time I have seen real rain since I left England and was not exactly prepared. Skirt, flip-flops and no coat, infact nothing warm to wear anywhere in my bag! In Rwanda you have to buy a ticket for ur bag as well as yourself as they actually have a seat per person here (wasn’t like this 4 years ago, but then 4 years ago I had to pay a $50 visa and now I don’t pay anything), so I decided that I would sit on my large rucksack which was on a seat to save money.

I stayed in Musanze for 3 nights in total, it’s a nice town but nothing much to do there. There are amazing views of the volcanoes that surround it and I had an apartment with 2 bedrooms and a large bathroom with a veranda that looked out onto the leafy grounds. In the time I was there I managed to sort out a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo for climbing volcano Nyiragongo, which has the largest lava lake in the world. All being well that my visa comes back I will be doing that trip on 24^th Feb.

Today I headed to Kigali, the capital, which is bringing back many memories of traveling back in 2008 with my friend Andy. I realised today that I have nearly done the whole circumference of Lake Victoria! The bus from Musanze brought back and founded all my impressions about how beautiful this Rwanda is. There are hills after hills and banana trees everywhere, it is so green and lush. Maybe the thought of what happened here in the genocide makes me so much more shocked of this country’s beauty. What also surprises me is how progressed this country is, even after 4 years. Proper roads, motorbike drivers have to have helmets for passengers, all buildings lived in must have iron sheet roof, not grass. And more to the point its EXPENSIVE for Africa.

I headed south to Butare, where I decided to go to a genocide memorial, ,it said in the book it was the most graphic, but words cannot describe what I saw. 4 rooms full of bashed in skulls and a whole room of leg and arm bones just piled up. Then the really shocking part…. 3 rooms full of dried out corpses, from men to women to children…. All I can say is the smell was unbelievable (u wont see pictures as I was not allowed to take and it also felt very wrong) but you could also see the hair still there, even under their armpits, they were dried as they had been placed in the mass graves. No glass cases, just there with arms leaning out over the tables they were placed on, it almost felt like they were reaching out for me. I felt kind of wrong being there. They say they have done this so people NEVER forget, which considering I think is a good thing. More than 50,000 people were beaten, macheted, shot etc.. to death in about 6 hours. In a school they were told to go to for safety. So so sad.

Moving on ….. oh the motorbike ride there was beautiful, but oh my god, mountain roads, crazy driver, at one point I nearly grabbed him as we went round a corner, hmmmmm note to self…. Motorbikes are STILL a death wish.

From here I went to Kibuye, which in terms of genocide and tutsi mortality rates was the worst place hit. Needless to say I didn’t go to the memorial. But the place itself is unbelievably beautiful, on lake Kivu. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16394635 just read to see how impressive this is! I stayed in a beautiful lodge where I had lake view, garden, it was bliss, APART from the problems, ant infestation in the toilet, so every time u sat down u were worried about very large ants biting you, also the sink leaked badly so my whole room got flooded, and no hot water, let alone the pork I got half way through eating in near darkness before realising it was not cooked!!! I complained and they upgraded me to a $80 suite. It had a romeo and Juliet balcony, bed with a proper mattress (not since uk have I experienced that!) and most importantly HOT WATER! I walked around the peninsula for a few hours with breath-taking views, this place is the most beautiful part of Rwanda I have seen yet.

I came back to Kigali, got myself a kick ass deal with Kenya Airways from Kigali to Nairobi 29^th feb. Got on a bus this morning back to Musanze on the hope that my congo visa had turned up…. No such luck. Im now sat waiting, having a beer, thinking SHIT. I need to get to gisenyi tomorrow to trek on Friday. I really hope it works out. Otherwise I might as well have been robbed all over again!!!

apologies that u now have to read two longlong blogs at once!

From Nairobi to Kisoro Uganda

Photos in order 1. Sunset from bar at Jinja (Uganda) 2. My view from my shower or the river nile 3. My friends daughter at Lake Victoria (kampala) 4. Monkey's and goats playing around the crater lake (near Fort Portal) 5. Pygmies (Kisoro)

Berend and Paul, volunteers at free Kenya for a year, started their journey home to Holland by leaving Kochia, but not before a leaving party at the ABBA which although happened much later than planned it was excellent with a private DJ and far far too much food that was eaten outside in the garden. As we travelled back to our guest house the car broke down… which meant the last week that had been planned for the boys was much harder as we then had to think about hiring a car.

There was also a nice goodbye meal from the Odote family, who own the land the free Kenya guesthouse is built on.

We all headed to Kisumu where Berend was very ill and naturally I got a little sick as well. We were invited to Miss Bunny’s (Sylvia, our friend and rabbit breeder/supplier) for dinner and ate samosas and had rabbit cooked in French style and choma (BBQ) style too. It was EXCELLENT.

To say goodbye to the boys we went on a little trip to Amboselli National park which is right on the border to Kenya with views of mount Kilimanjaro (well at least when not covered in clouds!!) The park was overpriced at $80 a head but there was one special moment that made it worth while. There was what I would call a migration of elephants, not just a few, but pretty much the whole population of the park. Maybe more than 250. We stopped the car, the first lot passed us, the male bull was MASSIVE. We could see the whole horizon were more elephant coming, so we ate lunch and waited. It was pretty damn cool, then were passing infront and behind the car, at certain points the bulls would stop and the whole herd behind would stop, we would hold our breath that they weren’t about to stampeed. Thankfully they didn’t. It was the second best safari experience I have had. (seeing 5 lioness hunt a gazelle up close in serengetti 2008 still being number 1)

My start of travelling had all the hitches you would expect… firstly the bus was nearly 3 hours late leaving Kisumu and a rather strange dark border crossing which took quite a while. Then as we were going along at quite some speed the bus blew a tire, we swerved all over the road, the lady who had been sleeping on my shoulder, woke up grabbing me shaking and screaming. Needless to say the driver did well not to crash. The other travellers I had met were to say the least… stupid, they wouldn’t pay an extra 50p to get a taxi to the hostel from where the bus had broken down and furthermore when the bus did get to near Jinja it dropped us in the middle of no where and they wouldn’t pay for transport to the camping site. They wanted to stay awake in the petrol station all night. Idiots. Needless to say I didn’t enjoy Jinja, the hostel or the people I met there!

Next stop was Kampala, where I stayed with my friends Mariska and Ali and her two adopted Ugandan children, she lives in the rich suberbs of kampala with a beautiful view of lake Victoria. I went to the palace where I was forced to wrap material around my trousers as I was not allowed to wear trousers in front of the king… he wasn’t even there. I actually went here to see the torture chambers than the notorious Idi Amin had used during his vicious rule in the 80’s. They were not much to look at but I did think the story was gruesome. People used to be kidnapped and sent to these 4 chambers that were filled of 500 people per 10 squared. Over 200000 people allegedly died there, no one ever survived, there was no food or light or water, except for the water that was in the entrance…that had an electric current running through it. So death was either slow by suffocation, dehydration, starvation or quick by throwing yourself into the water and being electrocuted.

From Kampala I went to Fort Portal, which I have nothing to say about and then went to a crater lake nearby, first time I nearly fell off the back of a motorbike, note to self big backpack, steep hill and motorbike DON’T mix. I spent a few hours walking around the lake, it was so beautiful, until I ended up with an escort… a man who did or wouldn’t speak English to me, I tried to let him past, he finally did, but then whenever I slowed down or stopped so did he, about 10m in front of me. I thought he as going to ask me for money as a guide at the end, but when I got to my hostel he said bye an walked off.. strange. It was also this night (but I don’t think connected to this man) that I got robbed. I had a beautiful banda (mud house with grass roof), I had locked my door and gone for a shower, 15 mins later I returned to find no break in, but my door seemed to unlock differently than before, once inside I saw my stuff everywhere, laptop thrown across the room, camera out. Then ever so neatly placed on the bed (that strangely had the sheet robbed) there was my money belt. I rushed over to see if I still had a passport. Thankfully I had all my cards, passport, all my Kenyan Shillings and £’s but the dollars and Ugandan Shillings were gone. Unfortuntely I had just been to the cash machine that morning. The lady of the hostel was very upset, she made me go with her into all the staff’s room and she searched EVERYTHING, even feeling both sides of the mattresses. I will never see this money again, but im just greatful to have all the important things still such as photos and passport.

I got a night bus to Kabale with two nice Israeli girls and decided at our arrival (3am) that I was going to leave them and head straight to Kisoro from where I would start my Gorilla trek. I ended up in a saloon car with not 5 people, not even 7 people, but 10 people!!!!! Im so happy I didn’t see where I was going. (mountain dirt road, driver sat on someone elses lap.) WRONG WRONG and more WRONG. I went to see a group of Pygmies the next day, which was quite a depressing site, they were moved 50yrs ago by the government out of the national parks and over 50% have no land ownership, so cant even find a new profession of agriculture. They were all hooked on drugs and some of the little huts they lived in were made essentially out of twigs and plastic bags. But they did sing and dance for me, for AGES and then continued as the followed me back to my motorbike. I did like the pygmies, they were very small in height as u would expect.

More to add.... :)