Africa 1987   Chapter II 

February - March, 1987

We set out from Kisoro with breakfast of the Travellers Rest omelette and chips in our bellies. Three Peace Corp Volunteer’s (PCV's) had arrived. Jeff, Gary and Ruby joined us and we all shared in a chartered pick-up  for USH 80,000 ($8) to the border. Charles, the Ugandan immigration officer, welcomed us back and he was happy when we told him that our new friends wanted to change money with him. The Zaire officer remembered us and greeted us warmly.

We walked through corn and potato fields, small villages of smiling people; it was all quite enjoyable as there was no rush to get to the “Gorilla Camp”. We all made ourselves at home in the newly built cabin; thank you Frankfurt Zoology Foundation. There were two rooms with three beds in each and a large fully equipped kitchen/dining room. It felt so new and even the outhouse was without odours. The cabin featured a magnificent view from the hilltop, looking down at cultivated land and small villages with the jagged Mt Sabinyo in view. The camp had only opened to the public for mountain gorilla viewing in September 1985. It had taken six months to habituate the gorillas, allowing guides to take two groups of six a day to view the two gorilla families. Sleep was difficult as we all anticipated a first visit with the gorillas.

The next morning, we waited for others with reservations to arrive. Our PCV friends waited for no-shows as they didn’t have a booking. Once a group of four arrived, we set out with our two guides who hacked through thick undergrowth including stinging plants. We ended up on a village path for a distance before veering back into the bush and low and behold, we reached gorilla nests of the previous night. The nests looked fairly comfortable and we knew that the “Oscar” group of 14 was nearby as they normally move about 300 metres a day.

We came across two young gorillas climbing in trees. Our guide asked us to prepare our cameras and he began clearing his throat, a sort of hello to the gorillas. A female and baby were off in another patch of greenery. When we moved forward, we were greeted by the great silverback male. He grunted and turned towards us; his huge head was impressive, then he retreated into the tangle of vines, obscuring our views. Our guide brought us around and we slipped over a log for look at "Oscar", some 5 metres away. "Oscar" then disappeared into the undergrowth. Our group then focused on some of the female and young members of the family. The young gorillas were jumping about, tackling each other and occasionally beating their chests. Three females went on break from their morning feed to lounge on their backs, just 5 metres from us. The females were considerably smaller than the huge silverback, but appeared well-fed as they all sported pot bellies. Eventually the family moved on, leaving behind smelly poop and hordes of small flies. It was an hour with the gorillas that we will always remember.

We also moved on, back to the cabin and a very pleasant evening. The PCV’s saw the other gorilla family and left, they were replaced by a German motorcyclist and Bob & Katherine of Seattle. We were spell bound by Bob’s account of imprisonment by Idi Amin’s soldiers and Katherine’s malaria ordeal.

The next morning, we waited patiently for 4 no-shows till almost 11:00am. Then we set with our guide and trackers with three fellows who had arrived without a booking. One of the three was quite sick with malaria. The chief of the mission also joined us and 45 minutes later, we reached the “Marcel” family, a more habituated group. We encountered a large female gorilla sitting in a tree eating leaves while her four month old fuzzy baby sat on her hip, looking at us. Another gorilla went too far out on a limb and broke it, landing with a thud. Two young ones, just a few metres from us, played quite happily in a tree, including beating their chests with their hands. The huge silverback was spotted and then he retreated but the guide had us climb around to some higher ground that offered a superb view. The guide made throat clearing sounds that made the silverback aware of us and we were able to watch him from just 5 metres away. The silverback seemed particularly large, 200kg and over six feet tall with massive square shoulders. He had a huge square head, leathery face, flat forehead, large nostrils and a powerful gaze; a true King Kong. He accepted our presence and began to feed and later to clean another gorilla’s fur, eating the bugs that he found. We felt a real sense of family; the father surrounded by his wives and children. We watched the group for an hour and a half before the family moved on.

We headed back to camp and then picked up our things and walked to the Uganda border. The gorillas were magnificent; each gorilla encounter had cost Z1,000 ($16). Charles, the immigration official, stamped us in to Uganda at 5:15pm. We were fortunate to catch a ride with a passing pick-up and were back at the Travellers Rest by 6:00pm.

After a leisurely breakfast at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel, of omelette, fries and tea, we set out for the Rwandan border 8kms away, on foot. It was a beautiful walk with volcanoes, women were working in the fields and children chanted “wazungu” as we passed by.. After an hour of walking, a pick-up truck stopped to give us a ride to the border (@ USH 5,000). I had to search for the Ugandan official at his resting place for a passport stamp. Beyond, it appeared to be a mirage; a paved road with a centre line, new signposts and a tidy Rwanda customs building. Immigration was a breeze and a fellow changed our remaining Shillings to Rwandan Francs (100 Franc Zebra bills) and we jumped into a waiting van. We didn’t have a bump or a pothole on the 25km ride into Ruhengeri. We stayed at the Centre d’Accueil, a sort of youth hostel, for RFr600 (C$8.00) in a double room with an endless supply of running water, working showers and toilets with a lovely garden. I went off in town in search of Asians. Where you find Asian business people, you’ll find a money changer, which I did.

We went on a shopping spree for supplies for our park visit the next morning. Then we managed to catch a ride in the back of a pick-up truck, with a few Africans, a couple of bicycles and plastic barrels full of banana beer down a dusty 15km road to the park headquarters of the Parc National des Volcans. We paid the entrance fee of RFr 1,000 (C$12) each, valid for four days, including a mandatory guide. The campground was deserted and we elected to pitch our tent under a basic shelter to stay dry if it rained, which it did. We managed to reduce the camping fees to RFr 1,000 for three nights (the other night would be up on the  mountain). The real surprise were the hot water showers. Later we wandered over to a nearby dairy, stocked with Canadian cows. We ventured into a milking barn and left with a litre of fresh milk.

On our first full day in the park, we set off with our guide to climb Sabinyo Volcano (3634m) that borders Rwanda, Zaire and Uganda. Our guide carried a rifle and he was more or less useless. We walked through mostly potato fields then up a steep trail through a bamboo forest and encountered fresh gorilla nests. Our guide was ready to search them out for us; “vous donnez moi quelque chose”. We declined and when we reached a hut further up, he told us that we couldn’t go any further because it was too dangerous. We left him behind.

The dramatic scenery was obscured by mist but the occasional break in the clouds revealed sheer cliffs. The route narrowed and the lava rock did not offer dependable foot holds, so two hours above the hut, it was time to turn around (100m from the summit). A shot was fired, we think by our restless guide below. Our guide did not request a tip at the end of the day. I cooked up a filling meal back at the quiet campground. At 1:00am, an Encouter Overland truck with twenty people on board arrived. There was a half hour of mayhem and then it quietened down.

despite the new arrivals, we didn’t hang around very long in the morning. We caught a lift with a group of French people 8km up the road to the Bisoke parking lot. We met our guide and started up on a two day hike of Karisimbi (4511m). The first hour of the hike was somewhat painful as we pushed through stinging nettles. We reached a hut in the saddle between Bisoke and Karisimbi, where Diane Fossey spent 13 years of her life and met her gruesome death. After dense vegetation and evidence of gorillas, we reached open grassland and moss covered trees. We reached a small A-frame hut soon after 2:00pm and lazed about in the afternoon. The volcanic peaks of Bisoke, Sabinyo, Gahinga and Muhabara stretched out in a line. Clouds covered the valley below.  After rice and veggies, I cooked up the  guide’s food as he had no stove or crockery. He seemed happy when we told him that we would be rising early the next day. We crashed out early by 7:30pm.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30am while our guide rolled over, back to sleep. We enjoyed the sunrise and walking through the weird and wonderful lobelias and groundsels. Sheila opted out 45 minutes from the summit, and I pressed on over rock to the top. Clouds raced by and down below were volcanoes of Rwanda and Zaire. Our descent was quick and we were back down to the dirt track by 1:00pm. We gained a crowd of curious kids on the walk back. When we sat down for lunch of bread and cheese, one young kid dared not walk past us but finally gained the courage to walk past us with an older woman between us. We had been told that some African parents tell their children that if they are bad, the wazungus (white people) will come to eat them. When I took out my camera, a group of kids flew off but then returned for a photo. We caught a ride with a couple of Europeans for the last few kilometres. The hot showers at the campground were fully appreciated.

On March 1, we made it a rest day. It turned out to be a wet day, a minute in the pouring rain and you’d be soaked. We caught up on the antics of the Encounter Overland truck. The group had driven 4 straight days from Dar es Salaam to see the gorillas. They were paying $2,200 for 5 weeks of transport plus all out-of-pocket expenses and I was complaining about paying $3 a night camping fees. Some of the inter-personal issues on the truck didn’t sound appealing. The group had purchased a sheep and were roasting it for 6 hours over an open fire. We had a delicious spaghetti dinner and went to sleep before they got to exercising their jaw muscles on tough meat.

We hitched a ride with a dairy truck to Ruhengeri and then we took a public van onto Gisenye. Sheila was pleased with the opportunity to sit in the relative comfort of the front seat. Gisenye was unimpressive but we were amazed by our walk beyond to the Zaire border. We passed posh European style houses, overlooking Lake Kivu. We had a routine crossing into Zaire and a couple more kilometres walk to Goma. The sun was warm as we staggered to “Le Sportif Centrale” that permitted travellers to camp on their lawn for Z80 per person. In the afternoon, we strolled along Goma’s main avenue, checking out many of the shops. The largest store was operated by a combo East Indian woman and a Belgian woman. You could buy Pampers, imported chocolate bars and calculators, but they would only allow one person in the merchandise area at once. There were plenty of nightclubs along the strip and saucy looking women wearing make-up, dressed in tight long dresses with puffed shoulders. The spiked hair was the most common woman’s hairstyle in town. There was a double line-up and mass confusion at the service station.

I got up early to purchase tickets for the Lake Kivu ferry, but not early enough, as they were sold out. Despite hanging around all morning, no further tickets went on sale. We tried again the next morning and tried to get on the departing ferry. At one stage, the captain told us and a New Zealand couple to get off the boat. Someone intervened and finally we were able to purchase tickets for a premium price of Z500 each. It was an uncomfortable scene, but we stayed on board with official tickets. It was an enjoyable 6 hour boat trip aboard the “Vedette”, stopping at tiny settlements along the lake. Villagers came to the side of the boat in dugout canoes to sell pineapples, bananas and oranges. I bought 4 pineapples for Z20 (25 cents).

Bukavu was a small provincial town overlooking the lake. It didn’t look like there had been any new buildings nor maintenance since Zaire achieved independence from Belgium in 1960. The sidewalks were reduced to rubble. We and the Kiwi couple roamed town in search of accommodation. Our first choice was full and we ended up at the Anglican mission that had a closet sized room with a single bed, so our buddies took the room and we camped out in the garden. When we were strolling back into town, a policeman approached us, and said that if we gave him money, he wouldn’t bother us. We refused and kept walking.

After some grocery buying the next morning, we headed for the Kahuzi-Biega National Park for another gorilla encounter. It took two hours in a pick-up truck and then a van to reach the park and we set up camp near two other tents. The local kids eventually bored of us after unsuccessfully begging for things. Four of us cooked dinner on an open fire and watched the evening lightening show, one of the rainy season attractions.

In the morning, we rose to hazy rain forest conditions and we and another tourist, Tom, were driven to a nearby tea plantation with our guide and four trackers. We continued on foot for forty-five minutes through undergrowth, our legs were continually stung by nettles and we slogged through mud, but it was all worthwhile when we reached the gorillas. The Mashimoka family boasted 35 members including a 40 year old silverback.

We were greeted by two young males and we sat close (3-5metres) to five large adolescent males. They seemed curious and stared at us. We were observing Eastern Lowland gorillas that are slightly larger than mountain gorillas. The only other significant difference between them is that mountain gorillas defecate in their nests and the lowland gorillas do not. Opposite to the young gorillas that we were watching was the silverback. The 200kg silverback suddenly grunted and began to charge us. As I was in the forefront, I reacted to him instinctively and scrambled backwards, almost knocking Tom & Sheila over. The trackers and guide quickly held their sticks up and called at him and the silverback stopped his advance. We did see other members of the family and at one point, we had gorillas on all sides of us and we didn’t have enough eyes to watch them all at once. We stayed for only half an hour, but what a half hour it had been surrounded by those massive creatures.

Back at the park gate, we waited for a ride out to the main road. Jeff, an orphan chimpanzee joined us. The rangers warned us that Jeff had been known to bite wazungus. A couple of beers were laid out on the table, but when they were taken from Jeff’s grasp, he went berserk and he put on a temper tantrum. Jeff screamed, tore up paper and then the American,Tom, walked too close, then Jeff went for his leg and chomped through his jeans.

Back in Bakavu, we camped at the Anglican mission (Z50/75 cents) and we enjoyed the local produce available in the small vegetable market. We had quite a nice dinner of guacamole & bread, fresh leek and cauliflower soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, followed by a fruit salad of strawberries, pineapple and bananas. It poured with rain but cleared for a quiet night’s sleep.

We joined a crowd of men, women and children and piled into the back of a large truck from Bukavu to Uvira, also in Zaire. However, the road passed in and out of Rwanda. Luckily for us, we met a Belgian driving a Landrover at the Rwanda border and we wrangled a lift to Bujumbura, Burundi. It was a novel experience for us, racing along a paved road, passing crowded, slow-moving vans in comfort. We were dropped off at 11:30am in pleasant downtown Bujumbura and we we sought out the Vugizu Mission.

We met a local guy at by the bus stand, who said he knew Mr Johnson of the mission. We all jumped in a taxi for a BFr 150 ride to a house and no Mr Johnson. Then our new friend informed us that the mission was only a kilometre away. Two hours later, walking in the afternoon heat, we arrived at the mission and I even thanked our friend for his help. Two British travellers greeted us on arrival. They had been there a week awaiting a wire transfer; they had been deported from Kigoma, Tanzania on a charge of vagrancy. They were camping and swimming by the lake and were surrounded by Tanzanian soldiers and brought into town. They were accused of bearing arms and spying; they were held and questioned for three days. At one point, Russell ate his currency form as it had an unauthorized (counterfeit) bank stamp on it.

Kenny, the 25 year old son of the Johnson’s, warmly welcomed us to his house that featured a collection of car seats, motor parts, tools, generators and masses of books. He showed us the fridge full of soft drinks, handed us the latest Time and Newsweek magazines and told us to make ourselves at home. We camped on the front lawn and went with Mrs Johnson to the Sunday church service. The next morning, we were all summoned to the parents house next door. We were served breakfast of banana, toast with honey & jam, and coffee. We learned that their 35 years in Bujumbura was coming to an end as the government was ending all foreign missionaries by that August.

We had a relaxing two day stay and Mr Johnson even drove us around to exchange money and purchase boat tickets to Tanzania. Bujumbura was a strange place with its American and French cultural centres and shops selling all manners of expensive imports. Burundi was ruled by the Tutsis. The majority Hutus (85%) had been subjugated by the Tutsis. Twenty years earlier, the Tutsis slaughtered 200,000 Hutus including all that had been to school.

We took an overnight steamer, the Liemba, a cargo/ passenger ship from Bujumbura to Kigoma. It continued on without us to Mpulungu, Zambia. Lake Tanganyika is reputed to be the second deepest lake in the world with a depth of 1,470m. We sat at the long dining room table on the Liemba for the set meal of the evening. Expectations were low and meal didn’t even reach that low standard. Out on the deck, the breeze was cooling. There were warning lightening bolts of a incoming storm. Twinkling lights towards the shoreline were those of small wooden fishing boats, with gas lanterns to attract fish. Our second class cabins were separated by gender. The beds were comfortable but the cabins were warm and stuffy to make a good sleep difficult.

We disembarked in Kigoma  on March 11 and proceeded through immigration quickly. We filled out currency forms, pressing lightly on the carbon to allow for future alterations. A sign indicated a mandatory US$50 exchange on entry but there was no bank at the dock, so it couldn’t be enforced. Kigoma appeared as a small, laid back town with trees shading the line of wooden shopfronts. In town, we met an Australian whose room had been subject to a midnight police raid. We kept a low profile and very discreetly exchanged currency. We made contact with Hassan Kocho at the Regional Trading Company (Brad, the malaria stricken traveller who we had met in Kampala had encouraged us to do so). Hassan was a nice guy and he helped us out with a few errands. It was hot in Kogama and the mosquitoes got us in the evening.  We walked down to the lake around 11:00am the following day and Hassan carried Sheila’s rucksack. He said he really enjoyed doing so as it reminded him of travelling. We all munched on some shish kebabs and barbecued corn before we pushed off in a local boat.

The local boats were simple but enormous affairs powered by 50hp engines. The boat was packed with people, boxes, crates of Coca-cola, bags and sacks and slowly motored along the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika. Rolling, green hills reached into the calm blue water with fish eagles perched in trees and cormorants on rocks. We stopped at the small fishing villages that were tucked in coves. Naked children merrily splashed about, women washed clothes and some people ran out to greet our boat. The three hour trip was pleasant, sometimes chaotic, but mellow enough that I dozed off a couple of times. We landed on a pebble beach and the boat conductor announced that it was the national park. An Australian couple (Gregg & Jules) and ourselves hopped off and we were greeted by a short, cheerful park ranger, named Moshi. We paid our park fees ($10/day) and had a wonderful swim in the lake. The water was warm, crystal clear and apparently crocodile and bilharzia free. We all later prepared our respective dinners in the comfortable hostel. We bedded down in the cool air, in anticipation of an exciting morning. It was quiet except for the occasional baboon screech in the middle of the night.

Moshi knocked on our door at 6:30am. We four were then quickly walking along the beach, then into the forest up a steep hill at a frantic pace. It seemed that we were a little late to arrive at the chimpanzee nests, but they were just waking up at 7:00am. One mother peered out of her nest looking at us as if to say “who has awakened me so early?”. She slowly made her way out onto a branch to defecate. The chimpanzee group stretched a little bit then scampered down to the ground and quickly disappeared. We followed them under branches and vines to see the family of about 10 scattered about munching berries for breakfast.

There was a steady crescendo of “Ooos” to keep the chimpanzee group together. An adult male stopped to eat berries and on spotting us, he seemed to make his way towards us, then stopped for a pee. We watched the group berry pick for a while and then they settled down to rest on branches. We were impressed with their agility and the older ones were surprisingly large. At one point, a female dropped down out of a tree almost at my feet, without concern, and continued on her way. Just a few feet above us, two chimps fornicated briefly though she looked quite bored. Afterwards, he picked bugs from her fur and ate them. We were attentive as the chimpanzees did not give warning of golden showers. It was a satisfying hour and twenty minutes with the chimpanzees.

When we returned to the beach, a boat was approaching. Rather than a leisurely swim and breakfast, we jumped aboard and headed back to Kigoma. It was a fast and furious visit, but rewarding. We had a plane to catch the next day.

We flew out of Kigoma in a Twin Otter on the the “Wings of Kilimanjaro - Air Tanzania “. We chose to fly rather than submit ourselves to days of travel torture. Even so, it took two days to reach Arusha. The flight out of Kigoma passed over many miles of marshland and twisting rivers, both brown and blue. The pilot detoured around thunderstorms and then landed at a middle-of-nowhere airstrip to refuel and collect a passenger. By late afternoon, we descended over the glittering waters of Lake Victoria and landed at Mwanza. We spent the Saturday night in Mwanza. It took us some time to find a hotel with a vacancy (TSH 180 or $1.80), and we cruised into town for some ice cream, sunset by the lake and a nice dinner at the Mwanza Hotel for TSH 150.   We got up early to catch our flight to Arusha and were at the airport by half seven. The flight was delayed to mid afternoon and we sat under a large tree and watched the cowherds pass by. By the time we were in the air, the clouds had rolled in and there was little to see.