Day 3&4-Monkey Mania

Days 3 and 4 were a road trip to the southwest of Rwanda. The first day we drove to to the City of Huye (formerly Butare) in South Province and visited the National Museum were we learned about the traditional cultures and walked through a reconstructed traditional house made of straw mats with a thatched roof. We had a picnic of fresh avocado sandwiches and mangoes in the parking lot of the museum. People in Rwanda do not really go out to restaurants. When Rwandans visit with friends and family it's usually an invitation to come to one another's homes. This is much easier than in the US, of course, because 1- neighbors live only blocks away from each other and 2-every house we have been to so far has at least 3 house helpers who cook and clean and even open the gate when we roll in at midnight. The restaurants are mostly for tourists and offer mostly international food in Kigali (Italian, Indian, Thai, etc).

After visiting the National Museum, we drove to the town of Nyamagabe near Gikongoro and stayed at the Golden Monkey Hotel. The next morning, we woke up early for tea and bread and headed off to Nyungwe National Park in West Province. The park is a stone's throw from Lake Kivu, the largest lake in the country. It is also at the border with DR Congo and Burundi, each only a few mountains away. Picture 15 of us bumping along for hours at a time. You can't drive fast because event the main roads that are paved are swarming with people along side the road carrying water or goods on their head and other vehicles pass you on the left and right at the same time. We are lucky that Nkusi, the son-in-law of our host family, has a business where he buys and sells cars once they are fixed up, so he has a few minibuses in which we have been traveling each day. He also took a vacation to be our driver and visit the country with us. Nkusi is what I call "The Man": he is super classy and anticipates our every need (as do the whole family), I guess he learned it while working at the Milles Colline Hotel when he was young. You may recognize that name because it where Hotel Rwanda took place.

We arrived at the park in mid-morning but it took about another hour's drive to get to the reception area where most of the hikes and tours start. Along the way we saw a lot of military men guarding the road since the forest is on the border of Burundi and the DR Congo, as I wrote (I'm actually getting used to seeing men with big guns slung over a shoulder-one thing the movies prepared me for traveling to Africa). We arrived too late in the day to do the chimpanzee trekking, but we did get to go see the Colobus Monkeys. We hired a guide and he took us to the largest group/family of Colobus Monkeys in the world. I have some videos of them jumping from tree to tree and I will attach here later. The Colobus Monkeys are black and white and pretty big. They were high up, but we got to see them close with my binoculars, especially the baby monkeys! I was glad I came prepared with my "adventure gear." I left my hiking boots at home because all the other women were wearing sandals and skirts, but they can climb the hills better than me in my American sneakers (I'm blaming it on the altitude ;-) We also saw a lot of plants as you would expect in an equatorial rainforest. Because of the large size of our group (15), however, we didn't get to learn much about those plants, but it was fun and we took about a million photos. Tracy: Christian, Rockko and I all took photos of many exotic plants for you!!

Sorry for not posting often. I will do the best I can to keep you updated...