gorillas are protected animals!

the dream team - before

finally, after weeks of planning, or rather thinking about it, we set off last weekend to climb the karisimbi. it’s the highest mountain in Rwanda, and a volcano. 4,507 metres above sea level. from the initial 10 people interested in going it ended up being just my neighbour, my housemate and I. we left kigali on friday afternoon in a samurai with two backpacks, a paraglider, two tents, day packs and a bag full of food. naturally the space was cramped, but it’s cosier that way, right?

we arrived in ruhengeri just after sunset only to discover that they had not noted my reservation… which ended up being a bonus as they gave us one of their double rooms for the price of the dorm, plus one bed in the dorm. we had dinner – a rather desolate buffet – and a couple of beers to toast to linn’s 30th. by 9pm we were curled up in bed thinking that we had to get up before six to be at the tourist office by 7am. turned out we didn’t have to be there before 9 – customer service and the giving of accurate information is not the strong point of the tourism industry here.

after coffee and breakfast we went over to the tourist office to register, meet our fellow hikers and our guide for the two day trip. there were about 10 of us – some in shoes that made my feet hurt just thinking about the walk ahead of us. and I seriously doubted they were going to make it; funnily enough one of those people ran up that mountain like it was a walk along the beach. sometimes you simply can’t trust first impressions :-)

we got in the car to drive to the point of departure. it was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining, we could see the volcanoes around and we were in good spirits. with U2 playing on the stereo we happily bumped along the road towards the entrance of the national park when suddenly the music stopped, then came back, stopped again. and then suddenly there was this smell of burnt plastic in the car and seconds afterwards smoke started steaming out of the ventilation on the passenger side. we immediately stopped the car, worried that it had all gone to pieces. on inspection we discovered that what had burnt was a bunch of cables clearly feeding the radio… bugger. no more music. oh well – at least the car was still running. so we carried on, without music this time.

the summit - seen from base camp

and once the car was parked and the porters hired – everyone speculating what the heck these mzungus were bringing in this ginormous backpack (the paraglider) – we started walking. the walk took us through fields and then into the national park, through forest, swampy meadows, past waterfalls and back into a different kind of forest; all the while the sun was shining and the spirits were high. after about 4 hours we arrived at the base camp; at 3,600 metres. there was a little shelter there and we had just stepped foot into it when it started raining. after a little rest and some food we set up our tents and then proceeded to make coffee on the fire. I am not normally a nescafe person, but hell, this cup tasted sooooo good! for dinner we made noodle soup to the great envy of everyone else. and since we had planned to start walking at 4am the next morning to arrive at the summit early enough for urs to attempt to fly down we crawled into bed by about 7.30 that night. sleeping in altitude is not easy, add to that the constant babble of the porters sat round the fire only a few metres from our tent and the incessant, offensive snoring of the polish guy at the other end of the camp – I didn’t sleep much at all. at 2am I surfaced feeling starved, so I ate a mars bar and turned round again, to no avail. by about 3am I decided it was better to get up and make some coffee to warm up before the ascent.

sunrise half way up the mountain

sitting by the fire at 3am waiting for the water to boil listening to the murmured conversations of the porters who were baking spuds in the embers and staring at the starriest sky I had seen in years was magical. again, the coffee tasted divine and I thoroughly enjoyed this last hour before the march, just sitting under the canopy of stars, knowing that what was ahead was going to be hard work and yet excited about it.

at 4 our small group, linn, urs, olivier and pascale, the porter for the glider and a couple of other porters, an armed guard and myself trudged off into the pitch black, our steps illuminated by our torches only. the terrain was steep and quickly turned into a challenge, climbing over tree trunks and roots, over rocks and mud, up, up, up. and yet, the fact that it was pitch black made it easier. you had to concentrate so hard on where you were stepping that you barely had time to think about how far you’d gone, and how much farther you had to go. about half way up the summit the light started creeping in over the horizon and we saw a beautiful sunrise over the bisoke, gahembe and sabyniyo (the chain of volcanoes of the virungas). the poor porter carrying the glider kept having to stop because the load was getting heavy in these altitudes. and all the while he must have wondered what the hell it was he had to carry up the mountain. most people thought it was a party tent. eventually we broke through the tree line and from there it was mossy with only some shrubbery and a cold wind started blowing over the sides of the mountain and we were walking in the clouds. eventually even the moss and shrubs stayed behind us and the terrain turned rocky, in some places we could even see snow – the first snow I’ve seen in almost 2 years… and then we reached the summit.

less than 100 metres from the summit

I met linn up there and she said that the weather wasn’t good enough for urs to fly. I felt sorry – both for him and for his porter. imagine heaving the shoot up there and then having to carry it back down… the summit was nothing special; some half finished radio station with masts and satellite dishes and heaps of rubbish crowned it, and because of the abysmal weather we couldn’t see a thing. the wind was of the icy all-penetrating kind and after a couple of swigs of water and some cake mixed with peanut butter we packed up again and started the descent. urs decided to try the flank of the mountain, a bit further down to see whether the wind would be less strong and permit a jump. so he took his porter and headed off in a different direction. we were walking down and just talking about him, hoping he could jump off, when we suddenly saw him fly out from behind the mountain. the porters were dumbstruck, quite possibly never having seen anyone paragliding off the karisimbi, or any other Rwandan mountain for that matter. we all watched in awe, took pictures and celebrated. the porters kept running down the mountain to the next opening in the trees to follow his flight with their eyes. once the guy who’d carried the shoot joined our group again they didn’t stop talking about it, excitedly.

the porter with the problem :-)

urs - flying. (the little speck in the clouds)

on the way down we met the rest of the group still climbing up. many of them looked exhausted, from the terrain, from the altitude. the added bonus of having walked up in the pitch black was that now we actually got to see where we’d walked past before – it was beautiful.

once back at the camp we had a warm breakfast – weetabix and muesli with warm milk and fruits, relaxed a bit, packed our stuff up and then by the time the others came back we were ready to climb down the rest of the way. I have never been a fan of walking down and even though the second half wasn’t so bad it still exhausted me. walking down is a mental challenge for me – it makes me incredibly grumpy. on the one had I find it infinitely more exhausting for the legs, and on the other hand it is hard because there simply isn’t anything to be gained from walking down. no summit to be reached, no achievement to be done. and the thought of a shower isn’t enough to motivate me. on top of that my knee started hurting really badly and turned every step into agony. the last two hours were by far the worst of the entire hike. on top of that it had started chucking it down with rain about half way and I was soaked to the bone, dragging my feet through the mud, getting heavier by the minute. luckily my shoes held tight and at least I didn’t have wet feet.

when we finally climbed the wall and exited the national park I was close to tears from pain and exhaustion. and we still had to walk back through the fields and the village to get to the cars. not only was I tired and cranky, but now there were also the kids saying good morning at 4pm and asking for money. at one point I walked past this group of kids lying by the wayside offering me to buy a gorilla for 500. at this point it is worth noting that where we’d hiked is where dian fossey was living with the gorillas; we almost walked past her house and grave. I turned round, gave them a stern look and said: ‘gorillas are protected animals. you don’t sell them!’ honestly thinking they were trying to sell me a live gorilla for 500 bucks. it was only then that I saw that they had little drawings of gorillas which they were trying to sell for 500 amafaranga…

the dream team - after.

about rain

I still remember when I announced to my friends that I was moving to england for at least 3 years. their reaction was overwhelmingly: 'why england? it rains there all the time!'
the first month I was there the sun never stopped shining and overall it wasn't half as bad as anticipated. no worse than other parts of northern europe.
having said that, it is also true that when it rains in england, it sometimes doesn't stop for weeks on end, a continuous curtain of water dribbling from the heavens to the earth - and that really does get on your nerves a lot. (although it also has the nice side effect that the island is one of the lushest I've ever seen!) everything is damp and cold, your clothes take a week to dry properly after washing them, it's humid and often there's wind which makes the damp permeate your clothes, umbrellas are useless because they get gushed about by the wind. in short - there are times where you wish it would never rain again.

now the tables have turned. the climate in kigali is that of eternal european spring/summertime, never too hot, never too cold; light at 10 past six in the morning, dark at 10 past six in the evening - every day of the year. no seasonal change, just dry and rainy seasons. in my first year this meant there is the long rainy season which begins I think in february and lasts until may or june. then the long dry season which goes from may-ish to september-ish, followed by a short rainy season which goes up to november-ish and then dry again for a couple of months. however, the first year I was here rainy season meant a couple of hours of rain a day, and then usually dry for the rest of the day. very rarely was there what I have come to call an 'english day' - i.e. rain falling lightly but constantly all day long. during the dry season it would still sometimes rain - not every day, but still.

now - the rains stopped sometime in may and since then I can remember exactly 3 times that it rained. and only once was there one of those alleviating showers that wash the dust out of the air and off the plants, that cool down the air and leave you feeling fresh and energised; kind of like eating a slice of cold watermelon on a hot summer day. the other times it was little showers that stopped before they could do much.
it is also hot these days; not unlike british summer - but also close. it's a heavy heat that presses down on you, that makes you sweat even though you're sitting in a darkened office without moving, it's the kind of heat that curbs your appetite and weighs down your spirits. it won't let you sleep at night because it is everywhere, pressing in around you and weighing you down. in short, the kind of heat that makes you yearn for rain. and the most evil part of the day is when the clouds start doing the rain dance. they gather in the sky, the wind starts blowing and you can smell an edge of rain on its outskirts, there's that chilly edge to it which you welcome and cherish despite all the dust that comes with it. it makes you look up to the skies and assess the cloud colour, density and formation - and every day I think, today it will fall, today we will get respite. and a couple of hours later the clouds have dissolved and the heat is once again pressing in on you. and this, believe it or not, is when you actually wish you could go back to england for a couple of weeks and get a rest, enjoy the rain gushing on the windowpanes, the soil soaking up the water and turning it into green canopies and fields.

it should have started raining by now; the rains are late. people say it won't rain until october. in kenya they're expecting a drought until november. I think some people call it global warming, or climate change, or something. think about it.