Grunting Gorillas, Gorgeous Gisenyi, and Ghostly Goma

4/16/2009
Today I played tour guide for Jessica for hopefully the last time… the forex, getting phone, gorilla permit and bus tickets pretty much took up the morning. Jessica was kind enough to bring some hair dye with her and so was even kinder to help me use it. The “cinnaberry” color looked much more cinna on the box and much more berry on me… I totally have bright red hair. Oh well, it’s all coming off in a few days. Candida got in on the fun as well but sadly the color didn’t really take since her hair is already quite a dark black. Anyway, we caught the 2pm bus to Ruhengeri and made our way up to the Kinigi Guest House where we’re staying the night before going gorilla trekking tomorrow (Mike came along for the trip but isn’t going to be doing the trek sadly). After a beautiful sunset and some reading by the fire, we called it a night early in preparation for the hike tomorrow.

4/17/2009
We were up by 6am and headed out to the Volcanoes National Park where we were lucky enough to get assigned to the Susa Group of gorillas. It’s the largest habituated group of Mountain Gorillas that– in total the group has over 40 members – and it was the group originally studied by Dian Fossey. Gail, Anita, Jessica and I were teamed up with a South African couple and after a fight with our driver over the price of our car rental for the day (he wanted more money since we were going to see Susa which is the most rigorous hike and furthest away), we headed out to the trail head at the base of Mount Karisoke. We started our hike by 9:15am and despite knowing the severity of the hike ahead of us, I was still exhausted after the 3 hours of off-trail, uphill hiking it took us to locate the group. The exhaustion and pain from the stingy nettles melted away as soon as we saw the first gorilla. Our guide, Felix, was really kind and let us spend over an hour with them (the visits are usually strictly limited to 60minutes to avoid stressing the gorillas) and we even got to experience a display of dominance by one of the silverbacks… he came within about 2 inches of Jessica and I, stared us down and then grabbed some bamboo and went back to munch on it. It was a phenomenal experience that’s hard to put into words but I will say it was well worth the $500 and I would go again in a heartbeat. All in all it was 7 hours from the car park back to the car so it was a grueling yet exhilarating day. We picked up Mike at the guest house and then caught the bus to Gisenyi and checked into the Paradise Malihide Hotel just after dark. Katie’s boyfriend Mucho’s family owns the hotel so we were quickly shown to our rooms and dinner was waiting for us after we all had a much needed shower.

4/18/2009
After an amazing breakfast (second only to the Serena buffet at Ngorongoro), we spent the morning reading on the “beach” and did a little swimming in Lake Kivu. Gail, Mike and I decided to walk to Goma for the afternoon. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get permits to climb Mt. Nyragongo (the active volcano with a semi-permanent lava lake) but we still wanted to see some of the Democratic Republic of the Congo so we opted for a day trip. Gail’s French definitely helped us navigate the border crossing and there was surprisingly little hassle (aside from our visa money going directly into the immigration officer’s pocket but hey, it is the DRC)! We took motos around town and started to see the stark contrast between Gisenyi and Goma within about 10 feet of the border. Gail managed to change some money without even getting off the back of her moto, and then we headed to Le Chalet for lunch which was a bizarre experience since it felt like we had been magically transported back to Gisenyi – it was a gorgeous restaurant on the lake where we had some delicious pizza and white wine... who would have guessed you could have a posh lakeside lunch in Goma of all places! We left Le Chalet feeling a bit ridiculous and so we went in search of a real taste of Goma. We wound up at the old cathedral that had been completely swallowed by lava in the eruption of 2002. Basically everything in the area is built out of volcanic rock and the streets are just flattened lava flows. The border closes at 6pm sharp so we headed back with enough time to be sure we’d make it back to Rwanda and joined Anita and Jessica for dinner back at Paradise Malihide in Gisenyi. We got to see a traditional Intore dance and then over dinner we met the US State Department’s representative in Goma and his fiance who is actually a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. volunteering her time at Heal Africa Hospital in Goma. Rolley, a friend of Gail’s in Kigali, joined us for drinks after dinner and after a fairly amusing misunderstanding involving a request for napkins and the delivery of a martini instead, we headed to bed.

4/19/2009
It was a rainy morning so Anita, Mike and I snagged a ride back to Kigali with Rolley (Jessica and Gail went back early for the children’s program). Mike, Jessica, Anita and I had dinner at Papyrus and once we got back to the house, I shaved my hair into a Mohawk (see below for pictures).

Cinaberry Mohawk - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2144780&id=2600785&l=c4466462d9
Rwanderings Part 4 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146552&id=2600785&l=ac859e949d