KIGALI, City tour, Rapid PCR test and trip to the Genocide Memorial
After an 8 hour flight from Amsterdam we were met off the plane, taken quickly through airport, introduced to Hussein our driver and then off to Kigali Serena Hotel. Located in Rwanda’s busy capital city, it is just 10km from Kigali International Airport.
First impressions of Rwanda are very good: it’s the land of a thousand hills and a million smiles, is only 1 hour different to UK, plastic bags are banned and it’s so clean
After a great breakfast it was a drive around Kigali to see the highlights of the city, before the all important PCR test. As the gorillas have almost identical DNA to us they could catch Covid from us and they would have no immunity.
Despite both of us doing a lateral flow before we left the UK it was a little bit unnerving but we both came back negative although somehow Lynn is now Norwegian and was born yesterday……
We then stopped at the Genocide Memorial and museum. This was an extremely sad time that wasn’t that long ago and the memorial provided a fascinating, though sobering, insight into Rwanda’s modern history.
Then after lunch it was a 3 hour drive into the mountains.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK – Mountain Gorilla View Lodge
Mountain Gorilla View Lodge is located on the slopes of Rwanda’s Mount Sabyinyo, has beautiful views of the surrounding volcanoes and is only a 15-minute drive from the headquarters of Volcanoes National Park, which is the starting point for gorilla trekking.
More about Mountain Gorilla View Lodge
This may just be a guy with a bike but here’s some facts.
- He goes up and down the hill six times a day
- On the way down he is laden with potatoes
- One the way up he is laden with sweet potatoes.
- His bike has no brakes.
- To slow him down on the down hill section he puts on shoes made from old tyres and simply puts his feet on the ground.
- You can often see smoke coming from his feet.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK – Golden Monkey Trekking
We spent the morning trekking to find the golden monkeys in the Volcanoes National Park. These endangered monkeys are endemic to the Albertine Rift area and are characterised by their golden-orange fur. We stayed with them for an hour watching them jump through the bamboo and hunker down to chew bamboo leaves, and roots. Our porter, Job, was so solicitous Lynn wanted to take him home with us.
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK – Gorilla trekking
After an early start to see the gorillas we were informed that it was 30 min walk through fields to start of forest. We were then told it’d be 20 min inside the forest but the group went “walking”. There was a tracker watching the group so he gave us direction but our guides had to cut a path through and it took around 1.15 hours. As they weren’t stressed by us we stayed with them for 1.30 hours.
It was absolutely worth the effort as we saw a very friendly group of around 20 gorillas that included two silverbacks, many juveniles mothers and babies.
There were babies suckling, juveniles playing, all of them feeding, some chilling, others building nests in the trees and some quite a bit boisterous charging.
We saw the silverback warn off one of the older males “a trouble maker”, a mother tell off two over enthusiastic juveniles and saw a large playful “pile on”.
All in all the best experience ever.
The group we saw was called Kwitonda group
The group comprises of 23 individuals led by Akarevuro, one of the three dominant silverbacks, the other two are Magumu and Kigoma.
Before migrating and settling in the lower slopes of Mt. Sabyinyo and Mt. Gahinga in 2003, the group used to live in Africa’s oldest National Park, Virunga National Park. Then, it was still led by Kwitonda, an adorable silverback that passed on shortly after clocking 40 years in 2012.
The group is named after Kwitonda as he led his family away from the war torn zones of Congo. As you walk past community land into the park to see this group, kids will cheerfully wave at you while exclaiming “Abba Mzungo”. It means welcome home white friend.0
More about a day gorilla trekking…
Primate Safaris
This section of our trip was organised by Primate Safaris and our driver was a lovely guy called Hussein who was a great driver and always had a smile.
TANZANIA – Great Migration
AS soon as we finished with gorillas it was a three hour drive back to Kigali to the Hotel Serena to get refreshed and a good nights sleep before flying on to Kogatende to begin our Safrai stage of the holiday