Last week was a nice week, with the memorial finished things seemed to lift a little. We went to two leaving do’s one of a couple of fellow volunteers who were returning to the UK and another of a giant Congolese man who was leaving one of REDO’s partner organisations. The first was fairly loud with lots of fish brochettes (kebabs) and Mutzig and the other was slightly more sedate with a buffet and a whole roast goat with lots of speeches in French that I didn’t understand and then lots of awkward silences where we weren’t sure whether we were waiting for another speech or allowed to start chatting again. It was great to be out with our work colleagues though and getting to know them a little better and to see the difference between a work leaving do at home and in Rwanda. In Rwanda it’s a quite affair with good food, you are expected to pay for nothing and get dropped at your house afterwards. At home it rarely involves much food but does involve copious amounts of alcohol, a journey home you don’t remember (and in fact are not sure how you got back)and finding lots of credit card receipts the next morning from buying shots at the bar!
We were meant to be on a field trip later in the week to Nyungwe but that is now this week so we decided to go to Volcanoes National park at the weekend for a gentle stroll up the smallest volcanoe. I really thought that it wasn’t going to be that hard (we did quite a lot of walking up steep hills in Bwindi) but how wrong was I!!!
I don’t think I have ever done a hike (or more accurately a climb/scramble) like it, even in my 5 times of trekking in the Andes. We set off at 6am to go to the park and after all the faffing around actually set off walking at 9am. We set off with another group that were going to Diane Fossey s memorial and in our group there was just me and Simon and one other guy. After an hour of uphill walking we were already a bit tired but had just reached the point where the Diane Fossey group left us, apparently this was where our climb started ( I thought it already had done about 45 minutes ago!)
After about another half an hour of climbing up what was almost a vertical slope of ankle height mud I asked the guide if it was like this all the way, fully expecting him to say no, I was disappointed to hear his reply was yes. I then thought/hoped he was joking but he wasn’t!!! another 2 ½ hours of climbing up and sliding down mud- think climbing vertically in sand, with huge rock steps every now and again andafter several times of saying I couldn’t make it we reached the top – 3700 meters! Thankfully we were lucky and despite the rainy season we saw the Crater Lake and a lovely view of the park from the top. I like to think it was worth the all the pain but given the option again I think I would pass on the view......
We didn’t get a break at all on the way up and apparently only 10 minutes was allowed at the top for a few biscuits! Then the way down, which I thought, would be a bit easier but went on forever and was possibly even harder. Simon likened the whole experience to the time he climbed Ben Nevis with a hangover..... After 3 hours of pounding the legs and arms (7hrs in total) we finally made it to the car at 4pm.We headed back to the hostel we were staying, pretended we had enjoyed the trip to some of the guests and then pretty much crashed out. The next day we got up late pottered around a bit and headed back to Kigali.
Today I can barely walk, I almost had to jump on a moto taxi to work (my walk is only 20 minutes) as my legs just won’t work and I have tennis elbow from leaning on my stick all the way down ...I can safely say that will be the last volcanoe I climb...... When I was telling my boss Damascene this morning, he said he had done it in 2009 and never wanted to do it again...my sentiments exactly! We are going to opt for the canopy walk in Nyungwe this weekend, nothing longer than an hour for me.....
Hope all is well at home
Lots of love
Helen xx
Pain...............lots of pain, that’s all I can say, beautiful view but lots of pain and we are still exhausted 2 days later.
It is a beautiful place in the North of Rwanda, all hills which are terraced with banana trees and with scatterings of lakes and volcanoes, I just think we might have been able to appreciate it just as well at 2000ft as at 3700ft. Actually had some altitude sickness effects and we were both quite giddy on the way down, like being slightly drunk.
Anyway, enjoy the view at our exense and I will give a bigger report when we get back from Nyungwe.
Lots of Love............Si
