Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Jeremy

Posing kid on the beach

 Kigali 16.02.2012

This Week has been a lot of waiting, but we got a nice reward in the end, so to sum it up, it hasn’t been too bad.

We planned to climb the Niarangongo on Saturday the 11^th. Jeremy arrived in Gisenyi on Friday in the evening, so everything was set except for the Visas. Roger and I got our Visas on Saturday, but Jeremy’s did not come at all. On Monday we finally got confirmed something we’d expected for some time. They had messed up with Jeremy’s Visa application, and forgotten to send it to the authorities, so the process was not even started. At that point we’d already decided to go without Jeremy on Tuesday if he couldn’t come by then, and so we did.

But waiting was not all we did in Gisenyi. Being camped on the beach of course gave us a lot of “beach-time”, but due to personal preference and rather chill and rainy weather we dropped the common beach activities like sun/water-bathing. A lot of time was spent reading, some repairing tent and chairs and some cutting my hair. I gave Jeremy a go, who’d never cut someone’s hair before, and demanded half-long overland style. First he made it half-long, and then he tried to make the overland style. In the end he said I’d gotten the half-long hardcore overland style, which was fine with me.

We also used the time to do two trips around Gisenyi, along the Nile-Congo-Trail, a trail along the Lake Kivu. The landscape was beautiful and we found a hot spring and a waterfall.

Tuseday we were finally set for Congo. Jeremy was sadly left behind at the border, while the two of us and Wombosi crossed cost (except prepaid Visa) and hassle-free. Soon after, we were standing at the foot of the Niarangongo, Roger in his Istanbul-shoes, which gave him quite some trouble, and I in my Namibia-shoes who behaved much better.

And off we went with two rangers to climb from 1900 meters altitude to 3470 meters. Getting up took us about four hours, and at first sight we were disappointed at the sight. Instead of watching the volcano, we relaxed and sent out a couple of Valentine-sms’, because you’re not in DRC too often. When night came, we gave the volcano another go, and this time it really impressed us. The Niarangongo is not an active volcano in the sense that it spits and grows, but it has the biggest lava-lake in Africa, that glows and smokes. We obviously spend some time sitting on the edge of the crater taking plenty of pictures, until we got really cold and crept into our sleeping bags.

Yesterday we got up early, and descended in only two hours. Before noon we were back in Rwanda after yet another trouble free border crossing. We said goodbye to Jeremy and headed for Kigali, were we first went to the genocide-memorial, and then found a nice American pastor who let us camp in his garden. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll be in Tanzania tonight.

The Genocide-memorial here in Kigali is a really good museum (even to European standards), and it is free of charge. It tells the story about the Rwandan genocide, where the Hutus (a people) slaughtered 800 000 or more Tutsis (another people) within only three months. The story is terrifying, but to see how Rwanda has managed to get up after this incident in 1994 is incredible.

What happened here was really bad, and can easily be compared with the holocaust in Europe or what the Red Khmer did in Cambodia, which is systematically whipping out a people (or group of people) in the cruelest way without regarding gender or age. Many Tutsis were cut up with machete, kids beaten to death and women raped in front of their children, and yet the Rwanda you find today is peaceful and quiet. There has been a lot of focus on Rwandans as one people, and healing the wounds not by revenge, and it works. Rwanda is really a remarkable country to African standards, with a history and a present that impresses. We’ll leave Rwanda with a positive feeling. The land of the thousand hills in friendly. 

Kigali

Lava-lake 1

Lava-lake 2

After the haiscut

A plane-grave-yard in Congo

Our spot on the Gisenyi-beach

Roger at the top of the Niarangongo

Lake Kivu

The land of the thousand hills

Almost there