A Rain Forest Weekend--There's No Place Like Home--Aug 2014

It was time for a weekend out of Kigali and since we had no prior engagements, we looked at the map and chose a forest weekend as opposed to a savannah or a volcano trip, both of which are feasible here in Rwanda, but those will come later...so, we left Kigali just after 1pm on a Friday, got out of town and headed south.  Our 1st stop just over an hour outside of Kigali was a small pottery cooperative, The Pottery of Gatagara, funded and founded in the mid 1970s by some Belgian's who wanted to help preserve the traditional Batwa art.  The Twa (known collectively as Batwa) are a small population of Pymgy living in Rwanda and the surrounding area.  Most of the materials for their pottery are found within 15 kms of the center which may be one of the reasons why they settled in this area.

a Twa potter throwing a pot on an electric potting wheel

the pottery after it has been thrown, fired and glazed

From Gatagara, we continued south through small towns and villages until we arrived in Huye (formerly known as Butare), the largest town in southern Rwanda, with a population of over 100,000, where we would spend the night in a small, inexpensive motel and veer west tomorrow morning towards the forest.  Huye is home to the National University of Rwanda, the oldest university in the country and the National Museum (a gift from the Belgium King in 1988) which houses a wonderful collection of Rwanda's cultural and historic heritage.  The ~85 mile or ~3 hour drive--due to the twists, turns and truck traffic with no passing lanes--from Kigali is well worth a stop.  It's the dry season right now in Rwanda and taking photos of the hillsides and countryside is not very clear, please excuse the dust in the air...

Gatagara Church

flood zone with rice paddies

a Friday afternoon hillside market

an inexpensive place to stay--clean, decent enough and only
about $28 for bed and breakfast for 2

the courtyard of the motel

snacks on the menu...needless-to-say, we did not order any
of the above mentioned items

We left Huye, Saturday morning venturing closer and closer, up and down hills and through more towns and villages to one of the last remaining primary montane rain forests left in all of Africa.  

a small roadside market with pumpkins, pineapple
and bananas

a shop owner with almost anything a villager might need

transporting mattresses

boys pushing a HEAVY bike up some really steep hills
transporting bags of charcoal

bed mats---on their way to market, probably woven by these girls

more goods on their way to market--potatoes are most likely
in this first bicycle load

closer and closer to the forest with planted plots

and finally, the forest

This beautiful forest is not only special because of the fact that it is one of THEE last remaining primary montane rain forests in Africa, but also due to the fact that this is the same forest where Aly was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burundi so many years ago.  The Kibira forest in Burundi is the same forest as the Nyungwe in Rwanda, the names only change because of the borders...but the forests themselves know no borders...neither do the monkeys, the chimps, the birds, the plants, the flowers or the tree species.  It is a GORGEOUS forest, bordered by well kept tea plantations in both countries, at altitudes averaging 7,000ft and cooler temperatures in the 50s and 60s.  We took a lovely couple of hour canopy walk one day, and spotted a few critters along the way.  Here are just a few of our photos...

this little guy met us in the parking lot--a Diademed Monkey

hiking down into the forest

Buddy and our guide

look at that beauty?!

the canopy walk

the walk is suspended about 200' in the air

about 150' of distance

with lovely views

a Blue monkey watching us as we watched him

more beautiful views

walking back up the trail

We stayed 2 nights at the forests edge; the 1st night at an inexpensive 6-room guesthouse and the 2nd at a very swanky, high-dollar forest lodge on the edge of the tea plantation and the forest just a few kilometers from the guesthouse.  Both places served their purposes, from quiet and quaint to special and luxurious.  The temps dipped down into the 50s during the eves and the air was fresh and clean and the rain did fall...as it should in a rain forest.  Luckily we were tucked in and listened to and a fabulous thunder storm and lightening show...

the small 6-room guesthouse

a feeding sun bird

a Vervet monkey out front of our door

a small family of Vervet monkeys getting ready for their day

the tea plantation bordering the forest

the swanky forest lodge

the lodge with cabins bordering the forest and surrounded
 by tea--it really was a beautiful place

the infinity pool at the lodge

the tea right up against the forest

a mama Colobus monkey and her baby only yards from the lodge

and the big Colobus male--probably the troop alpha

napping after eating

eating his breakfast and not scared at all

It was a fabulous weekend seeing parts of the country we had not seen in years with the feeling like we were home, or at least for Aly it felt that way!  We actually hope to someday get back to the Kibira in Burundi...but that'll be another trip...