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- Jan 15, 2024
- ☁️ 20 °C
- Altitude: 2,364 m
- RwandaSouthern ProvinceKaganoGabegiMushabarara2°31’50” S 29°24’29” E
Nyungwe forest
January 15 in Rwanda ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
Nyungwe forest is one of the best preserved rainforests in africa, with a very wide biodiversity of plants, birds, and, the primary visitor attraction, monkeys. And it has an canopy walkway.
They advertise „chimpansee tracking“ and other kinds of tracking, to only go after that certain animal with some chance of success (it isn’t guaranteed), but also many nature walks which they advertise with all the things you can see. Which is what I did and, to cut straight to it, I hardly saw any monkeys. No chimps, no colobus monkeys, no other monkeys during the entire hike except for mountain monkeys and baboons on the road and the visitors center, and only a handful of birds worth mentioning: among them turacos, which are definitely very beautiful birds. The hike was nice, the info from the guide very interesting, but after paying 140$ I cannot help feeling that I kind of left empty-handed. (It was also foggy, so the grandiose views of lake kivu or burundi were also not given to us.
Some words on the way there though: leaving kigali I, of course, had to climb a lot, and was accompanied by some of the most disgusting trucks and busses I have ever experienced. The black smoke that comes over those things — and they really crawl up the hill— is unbelievably disgusting. I did meet another cyclist on the way who had pretty much the same route in mind (rwanda, uganda, kenya) but we split up to go each at our own paces. I went to a museum of the old kings palace, took a detour across gravel which I thought would be quicker but was incredibly slow, and I stumbled on coffee plants. I actually thought they were trees but hugging these would probably result in me breaking something, so I refrained.Also, next to Nyungwe forest there are huge, really huge, tea plantations, and I absolutely love the tea with milk here. (Its like chai masala…)
Before Nyungwe no nice children running alongside, only children and people begging for money: they come up to you and just say “give me money”. Its horrible that Kigali is so well-off, but there seems to be so much poverty in other districts. (Not all, villages are generally not very poor, but I constantly get approached for money in some parts; also while cycling.)
My experience of people alongside the road changes in the next footprint ^^.Read more
Traveler 115€ voor een wandeling tja dan is Artis niet duur