Friday, a group of 8 of us (7 from the hostel and 1 that I found through the RPCV list) headed to Volcanoes National Park. Located in the north of Rwanda, near the Ugandan and DRC borders, the park has a chain of 5 of the 8 volcanoes in the Virunga and is the spot to see gorillas...if you have $500 that is. It's the site of Dian Fossey's grave and if you've ever seen Gorillas in the Mist, the film is based on her life working in the mountains. Our group hiked one of the volcanoes called Bisoke.
We head out Friday morning to get a bus to Musanze, the town where we stayed and apparently we missed the memo that you have to book buses in advance. By the time we got to the bus station, all of the buses were full. Luckily the man behind the counter was really nice and had someone escort us to a different bus company. We lucked out and were able to get bus tickets for that afternoon. We had a few hours to kill so we hit up the local grocery store- the closest thing to a Wal-Mart in Rwanda and stocked up on snacks for the hike and bus. We got to Musanze in 3 hours, driving through gorgeous countryside. The view reminded me of "real Africa" (as opposed to clean, organized Kigali), green everywhere, houses scattered among the 1000 hills, and life much calmer than in the big city. Goats and cows were scattered in fields and children waved as the bus drove by. It was great.
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| Getting ready to go at the hostel |
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| Excited face! |
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| Not so excited that I took this picture |
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| Driving to the hotel- this volcano is on the border of Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC |
Once we reached the hotel we split off into rooms of four (see the roommates below) and headed to the big living room to check out the warm fire. It was significantly colder and we all bundled up in our sweatshirts and ate soup to stay warm. We ended the night in front of the fire with hot African tea and coffee-- a mixture of tea or coffee with lots of milk and spices.
The next morning we woke up super early to get to the park by 7. Our vehicle arrived at 6:30 and we head out to the Park to start our day.
Now the explanation in the guide book about the hike was that it is easy and we kept hearing that it only takes about 2-4 hours. We found out that it is a little more intense. The altitude is completely different from what I'm used to on the East Coast -- just walking down the street in Kigali will leave you breathing heavily if you are not used to it. So climbing a volcano that starts around 3000 meters doesn't make it any easier. While the hike was strenuous, completely vertical, muddy and more like rock climbing than hiking, it was amazing and the views were awesome. I sadly did not make it all the way to the top, but I did manage to hike 5 of the 7 hours and it was so worth it. I figure I'll try to go back at some point and make it to the crater lake at the top but I enjoyed what I did hike and my time chatting with the drivers at the bottom.
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| Hotel in Musanze |
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| Roommate #1 |
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| Roommate #2 |
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| Roommate #3 |
The next morning we woke up super early to get to the park by 7. Our vehicle arrived at 6:30 and we head out to the Park to start our day.
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| All the vehicles are ready to go |
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| Driving to the starting point |
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| Waiting to start with our awesome walking sticks |
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| Dirty Gorillas |
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| Bisoke- the volcano we hiked |
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| The starting line |
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| Fields |
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| Altitude =2967 meters. This is where they told us the hard part starts... |
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| Water break |
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| Using trees to stay out of the mud. |
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| Gecko |
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| Armed guards with walkie talkies |
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| Gecko blending in |
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| Almost back! |
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| One last view |
