Nyungwe

Our visit to Nyungwe is hands down my favorite trip we’ve taken in Rwanda. And it was incredibly impromptu. We were basically like, “hey, wanna go to Nyungwe? Tonight? Oh, that’s not possible? Tomorrow then.” And next thing we knew, we were in Nyungwe. I should explain, Nyungwe is one of the national parks here. It’s known for its gorgeous scenery and canopy walk. We got there Thursday night after a 5 hour bus ride during which none of the dang Rwandans would open the windows on the bus despite how boiling hot it was. They were even wearing sweaters and thick, puffy winter jackets!!! These people would die in a mere Texas winter. They did, however, finally open the windows once we got to the forest, which of course was the most freezing part of the drive. Nyungwe is so cold during the rainy season. I will never understand these people and their internal thermostats (side note, it took me a really long time to remember what a thermostat was and the word for it. America is going to be weird). After the bus ride and lunch at our hotel, we decided to check out the town/village nearby. The town only probably had 30 houses, 1 bar, no real alimentations, and a bus stop. So of course, we went to the one bar, blamed our 1 Primus capacity on the elevation, and then went to go check out this other super ritzy hotel at the top of the hill in the village. There was no one staying there that night, so we had the people there show us around (including these incredible little villas. They had fireplaces, carpet/rugs, a real bathroom, decorations, luxurious looking beds…it probably wouldn’t have been so incredible had we been in America, but we weren’t, so of course we acted like a bunch of 5 year olds in a candy shop). Then they took us up to the restaurant and balcony. The view was incredible even at night, so we promised to come back for dinner and the sunset the next night!

The next morning, we got ready and headed out for our first hike—the waterfall :) We met our guide at the lodge, which was right next to our guest house, conveniently enough, and started off on our 4 hour hike. We passed through tea plantations first before we actually got into the forest, which was pretty cool. The rolling, bright green hills were absolutely gorgeous. Also, tea leaves don’t taste all that great. The forest itself was absolutely gorgeous as well. I think we called everything gorgeous an unnecessary yet completely inadequate number of times on this trip. We really were in a mountainous tropical rainforest. Also, the park survived the last ice age 10,000 years ago, so there are several ancient species there like this tree fern that our guide pointed out to us. The park is also supposed to have a ridiculously high number of orchids as well. Essentially, we were expecting to see a T-Rex come around the corner any minute. The hike to the waterfall took about 2 hours and involved going down several switch backs and a final very steep part of the path—all very fun on the way back up :) We could hear the river throughout the whole hike and, in the end, followed it up to the waterfall. Again, absolutely gorgeous. It’s not the highest in the region, but it’s the highest in the park and maybe in Rwanda? I’m not sure. Everything was more or less soaked around the waterfall including us. Thank god for rain jackets. We got several good pictures in, stood in the spray of the waterfall, and just stood there marveling at the immense power of the water crashing down—it was pretty impressive. Our guide also found a freshwater crab hanging out with us on the boulder we were on! I had no idea those existed. Then, we began the two hour hike back to the top. Not terribly fun. Oh! I forgot to mention, we had a German friend with us on the hike. His name was Andres, he’s a medical student or doctor or something, and he was on his vacation in East Africa. We made it back to the hotel exhausted, ate lunch, and relaxed for a bit. Oh, and enjoyed the lukewarm shower. Absolutely no sarcasm there. It was wonderful.

That night, we went back up to the ritzy hotel for dinner. The view was just as incredible as we thought, and the sunset was pretty :) We could see Lake Kivu, the volcanoes, and the DRC from where we were. It was definitely the splurge of our trip, but it made for a great evening.

The next day, we went on the canopy walk. That day was quite the adventure. The people at the lodge told us we could catch a bus to the middle of the park where the hike started at 9, so we thought.  It was a special Umuganda (compulsory community service for everyone who is 18+) because of all the landslides recently, so it was a little hard to find a bus, but we managed to find one after a while. Little did we know that it would be the slowest. bus. in. the. world. They were also blasting traditional Rwandan music (Celine Dion and Enrique Iglesias), which was nice I suppose. We finally got to the park a little past nine and limped our sore bodies up to the desk to ask if the hike had left yet. The guy handed us a schedule and kindly showed us that it started at 10. Awesome. So we sat around til then, met our guide, then set out on our hour long hike—much better than the day before. Again, we went down a bunch of switchbacks, and again, they were awful on the way back up. But we got to go on a canopy walk!! So worth it. We got down to the first canopy bridge, and the view was absolutely beautiful. The guide told us it was best if we don’t look down, so naturally that’s the first thing we did. Apparently we looked like we’d done this thousands of times. The drop on the first bridge wasn’t too bad. Maybe 30 meters, which is how long that bridge was as well. The second bridge was the most impressive—60 meters long and a 60 meter drop, I think. It was awesome :) And the view was so impressive. It’s the rainy season, so it was pretty foggy, but you could see clouds climbing up and over the hills/mountains across the valley, and…really, I can’t describe it. I have pictures, but those probably won’t do it justice. You’ll just have to come and see :) The third bridge was like the first, more or less, and then we headed back up to where we started the hike.

We saw a bunch of birds while we were there. The birds here are gorgeous. Apparently Rwanda is really big for bird watching, and with good reason. We also saw monkeys! I think they were called mountain monkeys. They were somewhat small with black bodies and white faces. We saw one on each of our hikes and several along the road.

So, once the hike was over, we had to get back to our hotel to catch the bus back to Kigali. The only problem was that we were 20 kilometers away and in the middle of an African rainforest. Not the best place to catch a bus. So naturally, we hitchhiked :) We got passed up by the first truck because the guys told us they had a spear in the middle seat, and the second truck was full of pigs that smelled terrible. The third truck finally picked us up. They were a couple of guys from Tanzania who didn’t speak a word of English, and we could say nothing more in Swahili than asante sana and all the names from The Lion King. Also, the truck was going 12 kph. We probably could have walked faster. But at least in the truck, we could all awkwardly try to fall asleep on each other. After we got back to the hotel, we quickly packed up and headed into town to catch the bus. They told us the next one was leaving at two, no big deal, right? Only that meant it was leaving from the city at 2 and wouldn’t be there til 3:30, as we found out an hour and a half later. We were just ready to get home at this point because we were hosting a party that night. Long story short (too late), we got home, drank, and were exhausted. It was a great trip :)