Akagera Safari by Night

Akagera also has two campgrounds.   The more northern one is a bit harder (read,  rougher roads) to get to,  and apparently isn't used very often.    It has a nice pavillion area,   pit toilets,  and firepit area.    This was probably one of the neatest nights of camping I've ever had.  

The campground is up near the top of a hill,  with views on three sides looking over the valley and into Tanzania.   Our group of 6 were the only people there. 

As we were setting up we saw topi (larger antelope types of animals) and tiny gazelles watching us.     Through the joys of car camping,  we also could bring along creature comforts.....   including wine.  :-)

After dinner we got a campfire going.    Playing around with long exposures on the camera,  we spelled out "Rwanda" in headlamps....

The stars were incredible:   we couldn't see a light source anywhere on the horizon.     A few other camera shots on long exposure:   (45 seconds or so!)....

After sitting around the campfire for a while,  we started hearing snorting sounds coming from the tent area.     We walked over there and could see A LOT of eyes reflecting back at us.        I may have mentioned before that there aren't big cats here so at least we didn't worry about lions,  but there are still hyenas and baboons which can be a bit of a problem....   but, we knew we had the cars to sleep in if needed....    We set up another long exposure on the camera,  and could see a small herd of topi (large antelope animals) were the eyes reflecting back at us!

This was sooooooo cool!  After a bit more star-gazing, we all settled in for a nice sleep for the night,  unbothered by any animals and lulled to sleep by the gentle winds flapping on our tents.  :-) 

Akagera Safari

On the eastern side of Rwanda is Akagera National Park.     This is the safari destination of Rwanda.   From it's hills you can see into Tanzania and towards the Serengeti.

One of the really cool things about Akagera is that it isn't as strictly regulated as other safari areas we'd been to in 2006.  You have to check in and out and get a permit,  so if you have car trouble hopefully they'd come looking for you,  but then you can go on your own without a guide.   We rented a pop-top Land Cruiser, and we (actually, Scott) could drive ourselves around whereever we wanted.   

 
You can also get out of the car whereever you want (but not recommended by the hippos!).     There aren't any "big cats" (lions, cheetahs, etc) here,  but the freedom to drive and walk around are well worth the trade!  :-)    Here's a lunch break with Scott and Jill,  and two of their friends in Rwanda, Joe and Sophie;    you can barely see the zebras and giraffes in the background:

 Akagera has a lot of varieties of antelope,  water buffalo, giraffes, zebras,  hippos, and elephants that weren't in an area we could see,  and a reported rhino.    

I love the flopsy ear on this baby zebra:

Roads in Rwanda

As you might expect,  roads in Rwanda vary quite a bit.   There is a really good highway system that joins the major cities together - two lane roads with nice smooth asphalt.    They're curvy everywhere and have some hills (Rwanda is called the country of 1000 hills),  but really nice!    Side roads are dirt, sometimes with big washout ditches in them,   and the farthest rural roads (like we rode to get to the start of the gorilla trekking) can be brutal by US standards,  yet cars, mini-busses and motorcycles can be seen on them.

Here you can see a typical road ditch:   you don't want to swerve off the road in Rwanda! 

We also saw the ditches being built in some other areas.    It looks like tough work -  and there were both men and women doing it.  

One fun thing about the roads is that they are also the main route for walkers.   With over 10 million people in this very small country,  there were always people walking on the roads.   It made for some crazy driving,  but thanks to Scott and some hired drivers,  we never had to drive.   

It's amazing to watch how hard working Rwandans are, and this is especially evident watching people on the sides of the roads.  People of all ages walking or biking or pushing a heavily overloaded bike -  sometimes in the middle of nowhere so you know they're going for a ways -  just to provide water, food, milk,  farmed goods for their families and to the markets.     Jill quoted a statistic that the average child walks 6 miles a day just for fresh water.    What we take for granted.     Rwanda seems to have a lot of public wells spaced pretty regularly along the roads - I think there are other countries much less fortunate.  

From there the water is either carried in hands,  on heads,  or loaded onto bikes.   These bikes looked especially heavy going uphill:

Here are some other photos from our time on the roads....

We think the woman in red has 40-60 lbs of potatoes on her head,  plus a baby on her back:

Taxis are not regularly used by local Rwandans - they are expensive.     "Moto-taxis" are everywhere in the main cities,  and can also be seen in some more rural areas in between cities.    Several years ago the government tried to outlaw moto-taxis,  but public outcry brought them back.    By law the passenger on the back has to wear a helmet.    We're not sure about the helmet law with babies....    The scariest thing is that if you see in this photo,  the moto-taxi is passing a slow moving truck going uphill,  and we're double-passing the truck and the moto-taxi.   This is all on a narrow two lane road.    Everyone was fine, but it looks a bit sketchy:

Luggage: How to Pack for a Long Trip

Here is something I personally find interesting.... hopefully you will too!

Maggie made a funny comment before we left about how packing is stressful and she's glad she didn't have to pack for a trip like this. I agree-- packing is stressful! I have two quick thoughts on handling What/How to Pack.

1. Write out a list on Microsoft Word of EVERYTHING you think you will need on your trip. Lay it ALL out on the floor, and make a checkmark by each item as you lay it out. THEN put it in your suitcase, making a second checkmark, so you know what went in. Save that list for the next time you make a similar trip. I have one called Ski Trip packing list, for instance. If you make the trip and weren't missing anything, then you've struck gold and you never have to stress about packing for that type of trip again because you have your list.

2. On your packing list, separate into one category the absolute basic essentials: passport, cash, credit cards, itineraries, medications, etc. Most other things you can always buy on your trip, but these are the things that could end your trip early. Running out of undies is no big deal.... running out of cash in a country with no cash machines is very bad.

Bonus--- 3. Type out your entire itinerary with dates, times, places, relevant emails and phone numbers. Goof around with small font size until you can fit it onto a credit card sized printout (double sided if you need to.) Take that to Kinkos and laminate it. Keep it with your money. Now you always know what's going on without needing your computer or digging through a bunch of printouts. Make a second one for emergency contact information in case it's needed during the trip.
A small miracle occurred shortly before the holidays. That is that Jodi said we could buy some proper luggage for the first time in our lives. I knew we would be moving around a lot and having to walk through Southampton, London, subway/train stations, big airports, etc. I really did not want to be tugging along our hand-me-down luggage with the too-short handles which hit the back of our feet and want to tip over all the time.

Also, because we have to have everything from black tie, formal-dress outfits, to down coats and hiking/camping clothes, we have a lot to bring on this trip. As it turns out, we would not have fit into our old luggage anyway. We would have had to check a third bag and pay luggage fees on every leg, which would be bad. With the new luggage, we fit into two checked bags and two carry ons (my small silver one, which I got at Costco in St. Louis Park a month before the trip for like $40, and Jodi's backpack. If you need a carry-on bag, GO GET THAT COSTCO ONE!!! It's awesome for $40!)

It turns out that a major online luggage store is based in Minnetonka, right by the Best Buy behind Target. http://www.luggagepros.com/   They have a retail storefront there, so we could check out lots and lots of different pieces. And they sell stuff there for the same prices as their online store, so it's the rare chance to see things in person and still pay low, online prices.

I wanted something with four good wheels, a solid case shell (so rain is no problem), and good zipper pockets inside. We looked at everything they had, including $1,000+ pieces which we would never buy. By far, both our favorite was this Samsonite Silhouette. Forgive me for including a link which shows their pricing.... I'm not trying to share what our luggage cost but simply allow you to go get the same thing if you want. And hey, this luggage already saved us enough in checked bag fees to offset buying one of the pieces, just on this trip!

This link is for the really big one. For most normal uses (unless you are a huge packer) you would probably want the next size smaller (the middle one in my above picture.)

http://www.luggagepros.com/samsonite-silhouette-12-hardside-30-spinner.shtml

We were going to only get the big one and then use one of our old crappy ones for this trip. Then Jodi found out that the pieces nest inside each other for storage and she wanted to get the medium-sized one, too, which I had wanted to get all along anyway. it was pretty funny. She told the sales guy "I didn't even want the first one, but now that I know they nest, I want them both!" Another sweet feature is an integrated TSA lock on the case which the zippers go right into. No more dealing with those little locks!

Jodi used the big bag and I used the medium one. Now for the next miracle item, without which I could not have fit my stuff for this trip. That luggage place, and REI and others, sell these bags you can put your clothes in and then push out all the air so they get very thin. You just ziplock the end of the bag, and then push the air out of one-way valves at the end. If you lay on the bag, you can get them really thin. The bags then fit right into your suitcase.

The other great thing is you can use those bags to segment your stuff. I had one bag full of camping/hiking clothes, which I never had to open until we got to Rwanda and needed it. And obviously by then I didn't need my black-tie stuff, so into a bag that went.

http://www.luggagepros.com/eagle-creek-pack-it-compressor-set-s-m-l.shtml

In the pic below, I don't even have the bag very full.

 

Still, though, clothes hold a lot of air!

After smooshing! Takes like 15 seconds to smoosh the air out.

The bags fit right in the luggage.

Depending how you stuff them, the bags can leave some nice space around the edges for shoes or whatever.

What I like with the Samsonites we got it that both halves of the suitcase has a full-zippered enclosure, so no matter what, all your stuff isn't going to jump out when you open it. For the flight to NY, I put my hiking backpack on what you see in the picture below and still got the suitcase closed just fine.

In closing on this fascinating topic.... how has the luggage performed on our trip? FRIGGIN' AWESOME! We had some very long walks through the tube in London, and it was quite easy to push the luggage along on four wheels. The way they both open into halves, we could push them under our bed on the cruise ship and then pull them out like a drawer to get things when we needed. Our old luggage would not have fit under the bed.

The hard shell is nice so we don't have to worry about getting rained on. These bags should last us many, many years, and just thinking about packing into them on future trips instead of our old ones actually makes me feel happy. So I'm super happy we got them, and I think by now Jodi is, too. ;-)

Climbing Mt Karisimbi, Day 2

An early start this morning - we started hiking just as the sun was coming up.

From camp up to the top is pretty steep the whole way.  Not many switchbacks to break up the slope,  so pretty much every step is a step up - with a lot of them shin-high step-ups.    For about an hour we had more of the Dr.  Suess-like senecios and lots of other thick green trees and plants.

Then we hit the "jungle gym":  the slope is steeper and maybe at some point a hundred years ago there was a bit of a landslide or something, because there are living trees at all kinds of angles .    It was fun and breathe-taking, literally!

As we climbed,  the trees start to get thinner,  and a nice thick mat of grass and othe groundcover takes over...

As we reach the cloudline,  the winds pick up a bit...

The last 200 ft are rocky, and soon we find ourselves at the top.     What a rewarding view!  Uh, well I'm sure there is a view back there somewhere.....

We did get a nice view of the cell-phone tower,  and what may have been an old fence separating the Democratic Republic of the Condo.    Here's Chris "in the Congo".... note our military escorts are now in top water buffalo spotting mode:   as long as the buffalo only come from the Congo side.  :-)

After a few minutes at the top,  then we start our descent.   We backtrack on the same route we came in on, going down to base camp to pick up gear and then the rest of the way out.   Camp is the bright green square that Jodi's pointing at.

What took approx 10 hours total (6 on day 1,  4 on day 2) of climbing up,  took around 6 hours of climbing down.  Chris turned his GoPro on and snapped photos every 5 seconds for most of it.....  here are a few pretty ones!



In the picture above -   the ground is super soft spongey soil.  Maybe watercress growing on top?   Since it hadn't rained for a week or so it was really nice to walk on,  but you can see all of the hoof prints in the ground....  maybe there are a few water buffalo around here after all....

As we got to an easier section, our porters went a bit ahead.   Soon we walked up on them standing in a field and pointing in the woods to the side....  a water buffalo!    It was laying down,  watching us.    Stood up, and walked into the woods.     Chris was expecting a flabby and non-athletic type of cow or something.   After seen the linebacker build and muscles on this,   he didn't want to see any more of them.

We kept walking,  and didn't see any more large animals.   Soon the farmers fields were in sight and we knew we were close to the end.  

What a great hike! 

Climbing Mt Karisimbi, Day 1

Mt Karisimbi is in the same Volcanoes National Park area where the gorillas are.    After taking a day off in the town of Musanze,  eating some wonderful "skinny chicken" in peanut sauce at the Muhabura,  we headed back to the park to start our climb.  

To climb Karisimbi,  the park requires permits and a small entourage.     We had two great local guides Ferdinando and Roger,  four porters for the group,  and 6 military escorts.    The military escorts are kind of a funny thing:  they stay more or less just out of our view, with 3 of them in front of us,  and 3 behind.  They carry big guns.   We're told it's for protection from water buffalo - not that they'll kill them, but that they'll fire the guns to make noise and scare them away.    We're pretty sure there's more to it than that also -  the top of Mt Karisimbi is on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and very close to Uganda).   The DRC has some of "the other kind of gorillas with the other spelling" and other activity going on over there,   so we're also thinking it's for general protection too.     Nothing bad has happened here for a long time,  and the border seem to be respected quite well.    We compared it to a security guard at Jimmy Buffet concert:   more than likely noone is going to do anything stupid,  but having security guards prevents people from thinking it's easy or acceptable to rush the stage.  

It started at the same place as our gorilla hike - as far down a country village rock-pile-road as the Land Cruiser could drive.    We were super happy to have John,  Jodi's porter from the gorilla trek,  who luckily was in the porter line at the right time to also be a porter for our Karisimbi climb.    We're thinking we'll do a whole separate blog post on porters and John...  but for now let's just leave it as we were super happy to see John again, and by the end of this climb Jodi has developed a crush on him.    Chris also says he has a crush on him because he could see how good he was to Jodi,  and because he laughed at Chris's jokes even though we're pretty sure he doesn't know a lot of English.  

We walked out of the village and through the farm fields into the mountains.     After 45 minutes or so,  we hit the edge of the park and headed into the jungle.     In the lower areas,  the greenery can be 6-7 ft tall,  and thick!   We followed a trail, but in many places it was pretty overgrown.     There are stinging nettle plants in the lower areas - if they touch your skin (or get through your clothes),  they feel mildly stingy and sort of burning - maybe similar to red ant bites I guess.     Mother Nature sure can be smart sometimes though - because most times growning along side of the nettles (on left of photo) there are the natural antidote medicine - senecios (on right of photo).

The route was one of the most beautiful hikes we've done.     Thanks to thousands of years of jungle growth decomposing into soil,  it was also one of the softest paths you'll find for the elevation of this mountain.    We passed through several different zones,  each with different plant types, and temperatures:  85-90 deg F temps at the base where we started at 7200 ft elevation,  and 32 deg F at the top at 14,787 ft.   For Day 1,  we climbed up to a camp at 11,000 ft.   

We started by climbing up to a saddle between Mt Karisimbi and Mt Besoke.   Once we got to the saddle,  it was flatter and had open areas.     Chris joked about it being a golf course.   

We also got some nice view of the top of Karisimbi:    tomorrow morning we'd be on the top of that! 

As we started up to slopes of Karisimbi,  the plants turned Dr Suess-like.  

A few minutes before we hit camp we could look back at where we'd come from.   In the background is Mt Besoke (and the gorillas we'd visited two days before),  the "golf course" saddle in the right side,  and we'd started down lower off that saddle to the right just 6 hours before.  

  

We got to camp around 4pm.   They have two nice shelters set up there -  one for tourists to set up our tent in,  and one for the porters to sleep in.   

It gets dark early here too - around 6pm.   We all joined around the campfire (except for the military guys - I guess they have bush training on these days?)  and then we settled in for the night. - early start tomorrow morning!  :-)