An Eventful Weekend!

Coffee, Tea, the mountain gorilla. The 3 major exports or income generators of Rwanda. So far I've done a pretty good job of supporting the coffee industry (thank you bourbon coffee), but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to fork over the $500 for a permit to see the gorillas. Plus the waiting list to see the gorillas is often 3-4 months, and when i checked last month they were already booked through October. So last week on a whim I decided to check the tourist office to see if there were any cancellations and lucky me, there was one for this past Saturday.



Volcanoes National Park (where the Gorillas are found) is in the Northern park of the country about 2 hours away from kigali. Unfortunately, about 20 minutes from Musanze (the closest city to the park) as I was enjoying the beautiful scenery along the winding scenic hills the little boy sitting next to me started vomiting in a plastic bag (which was dangerously close to my leg). *warning. i have a major barfing phobia* Just when i thought it couldn't get any worse, the woman seated 3 mm to my right quietly opened up her purse and began vomiting inside. (I hope she took her wallet out first).

Anyway, quessiness aside, i later found myself at the Kinigi Guest House-originally set up as an incoming generating venture for widows of the genocide-- a very peaceful guest house overlooking the Volcanoes very close to the park entrance.

Early on Saturday morning we arrived (a couple of people i knew from kigali were randomly staying at my hotel) at Gorilla central were the 40 of us lucky enough to get permits (there are five habituated groups of gorillas, with 8 people allowed to visit per day) milled around, reading facts about tourism, gorillas, volcanoes. etc. The information that has stayed with me two days later:

1. Gorillas each have a distinct marking above their nose which is used as a sort of finger print
2. Silverback's are the adult male gorillas (over age 11?) who indeed have silverbacks, are the leaders of the group, and don't allow other male gorillas in the group to mate with the females.
3. Gorillas make a new nest every night, because there old one is not only a bed, but a toilet.
4. Americans are by far the largest group of tourists who visit the gorillas in Rwanda.

Anyway, once all of us were divided into our respective groups of 8 (ours included 5 of us who loosely knew each other from kigali) and 3 people from Minnesota who were in country for a Project Rwanda event (more on that later), we set off to see the Umabano group, a group of nine gorillas including an infant (11 months) and "Charles" the Silverback of the group.




So other trekking experiences i have had in Africa would best be describing as "chimp strolls" or "colobus monkey ambles". The gorilla trekking is aptly named, as we scrambled up somewhat muddy at time near vertical "paths" for about 1 hour and 30 minutes to find the gorillas. But once we arrived, it was worth every scrape, breath, and penny to get there...We had to scramble amongst weeds and dense vegetation to get to the group who were mostly resting in a big pile near a large valley.

You are only allowed to spend 1 hour with the gorillas, but within the first 2 minutes a curious youngster jumped on over to us, and ignoring the guides grunting noises--which was supposed to be a "hey, get away" in gorilla speak--and grabbed on to my pant leg. i wasn't sure what to do, i tried to scramble away but because we were on a very steep and slipperly slope i didn't have much room to manuever. Eventually he let go and rolled down the hill to the fam. but it was (yet again) one of those amazing life moments, when i thought, hmm..here i am on the side of an ancient volcano overlooking a beautiful valley with an endangered mountain gorilla grabbing my leg...how on earth did i get here?!

Anyway, lets just be glad that it was little X grabbing my leg, because if it had been Mr. Charles, the monstrous silverback I may have needed a change of underwear. He grunted at our group once and it was enough to have me jump behind the guide. So our hour (which seemed closer to 10 minutes) entailed watching the family pick berries from trees, pick bugs off each other, quite a few nose pickings, some general flopping around, some breast feeding, scratching, the baby attempting to climb up towards its cousin only to have the cousin roll down on top of it pushing the baby down the hill, a couple of the infamous chest beatings (though in play, no fear of sudden attack), wrestling at all levels, and some human/gorilla staring competitions. (which at nearly $9 per minute, the humans usually won). Its truly amazing how similar our behaviors are-not that I’ve picked bugs off of anyone recently, but they way they fling their arms over there face when sleeping is reminiscent of some recent slumbers.

All too soon, our guide was telling us it was time to go and we struggled back down the volcano-much easier than going up—and we drove back to headquarters with village kids chasing our van for much of the trip. While the trip was expensive, it is nice to know that most of the money goes back into the surrounding communities for school fees, conservation lessons, infrastructural improvements etc. again, worth every penny.

Part 2 of my epic weekend:

So as I mentioned earlier 3 people in our gorilla group were visiting Rwanda as consultants to Project Rwanda, a new NGO which aims to use bicycles to improve the daily lives of Rwandans. with their most recent success, the “coffee bicycle”

While visiting Rwanda a couple years ago, an adventurous businessman/bike enthusiast saw the importance of the bike to the Rwandan economy and started an NGO, Project Rwanda, which provides coffee bikes (A unique design, which can haul twice as much coffee beans as a regular bike, is safer, and better designed than the one speed bikes which look like they are straight out of 1904.) to local farmers through a micro-lending program. Each year as a fund raiser/awareness campaign they host the “wooden bike classic”- though wooden bikes were banned this year due to safety concerns.

(*interesting side note. Though wooden bikes were indeed banned this year, the event planner decided that “bike surfing” where one stands on the back of a bike on the coffee rack and “surfs” while being wheeled around at tremendous speeds by a team Rwanda cyclist, would be a suitable replacement…next year stay tuned for wooden bike surfing: a combination of the two most unsafe things one can do on a bike)

So my visit to the gorillas happened to coincide with the 3rd annual Wooden Bike Classic, and I was convinced to stay in town for an extra day to check out the festivities. (I actually missed the big event which was a road bike race from Kigali to musanze—umm remember those curvy hills I was describing during the barf episode…imagine those while peddling up very steep hills, dodging potholes, people, crazy busdrivers, etc..its amazing that people made it in one piece (though one girl did have to get 30 stitches in her chin…) the winner was from Rwanda’s National Cycling team who completed the ride in 2 hours and 30 minutes (!!!!!!@#!) (remember it’s about a 2 hour DRIVE)


Anyway, somehow amongst all the biking excitement I found myself filling out an entry form for the coffee bike race, despite the fact 1. As demonstrated from my previous day of hiking up a volcano, I am a lot more out of shape than I thought I was. 2. I have never ridden a coffee bike (its probably about 3 feet longer than a regular bike) 3. Gorilla trekking gear π coffee bike racing gear.

The morning races consisted of a mountain bike race, and my personal favorite, the single speed bike race where I’m sure all the bike taxis within a 40 mile radius came in to participate. At least 200 bikers, pushing, shoving, arguing over positioning, wipeouts; tour de france it wasn’t, but these guys peddled their hearts out for a cash prize—probably more than they would earn as a bike taxi in a month! (actually rumor has it that the team Rwanda cyclist who won the Kigali-muganze race got his start at age 12 as a bike taxi)

In between events, the scenes were just as entertaining. Kids trying to scramble on the backs of bikes for a trip around the track, only to be beaten back by men with sticks. A man with a Halloween mask going around the stands (which probably had at least 2,000 spectators) giving people high fives. Race officials trying to break up fights about (bike theft? Positioning? Who knows…)

Anyway, by the time the coffee bike race came around (nearly 2 hours behind schedule) my nerves had calmed a bit…what was originally going to be three laps around town, had been shortened to three laps around the track. Several other muzungus had entered the race. someone had lent me their shorts. My biggest fear now was catching the 3:45 bus back to Kigali…



So after a horrendous start where I nearly fell off the bike, (p.s. there was no on your mark, get set, go here) I regained composer and eventually caught up to the rest of the pack…The 2nd lap involved avoiding a major pileup (where unfortunately someone got pretty scrapped up) and it was actually enjoyable hearing “muzungu!” around every turn…by the 3rd lap, my lungs were ready to explode and I realized I maybe should have ridden a bike within the last 6 years (more than to and from campus that is…) regardless, I finished. I wasn’t the last, and I wasn’t the first but I escaped with some dignity and a realization that I will probably not be recruited to join team Rwanda any time soon. And with jellied legs, I “ran” to the bus and hopped on at 3:41…