After confronting the worst of Rwanda at the Kigali Memorial Center, we decided it was time to get out of town and see another part of the country. Known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, nowhere is this more evident than in the northwest along the border with Congo and Uganda, where a chain of jungle-clad volcanoes (some still active, like the one that swallowed the town of Goma in a lava flow in 2002) rises up from the fertile valleys to heights of 14,000 feet.
To get there, we took a brand new Toyota Coaster bus on a two-hour trip that wound dizzyingly along high mountain roads. Called the Virunga Express (after the mountain chain) we were amazed that these buses left every half hour on the dot. Chalk it up to the population density or the billions of dollars in foreign aid, but we were shocked – timetables aren’t as reliable even in New York’s Grand Central!
The landscape became greener and more luxuriant as we reached Ruhengeri, with picturesque small farms dotting the hillsides. We also noticed an increase in signs along the side of the road. We asked people what the signs meant, and they explained, “Rwandans, stop the ideology of genocide.” Ruhengeri was a Hutu stronghold in 1994; maybe that’s why so many signs are there today.
When we went to bed, Anette wasn’t feeling well and had a fever (we’d been on the road for two weeks now) but we hoped that after taking some NyQuil and having a good night’s sleep she’d be ready to climb the volcano. In the morning when we reached the ranger station we saw a swarm of white tourists swathed in expensive gear, all of whom were going to see the gorillas, at $500 per person. We picked up three young travelers, who like ourselves didn’t have that kind of money and just wanted to climb a volcano.
The five of us got out at the base of Mt. Bisoke, whose top was hidden in the clouds. Blue-leafed trees stood out magically against the deep green of the jungle vegetation, stone walls lined the farmers’ fields, and cows, sheep and goats grazed the hillsides. “Amahoro,” we greeted the farmers and their children in Kinyarwanda. “Amahoro,” they said back to us with a smile.
We met up with our guide and a Rwandan army soldier who would accompany us with his AK-47. The soldiers conduct regular anti-poaching patrols, but are also there for our safety in case we meet an angry silverback gorilla, forest elephant or buffalo. It was a bit unnerving to look at this cadre of soldiers dressed in camo, faces of steel, holding their AKs, and wonder what they must have done during the genocide.
As we began to climb, the vegetation absolutely engulfed us. The trail was narrow and muddy, and as we brushed aside leaves bigger than our heads, we noticed that our skin began to sting. Nettles and other poisonous plants were all over, vines and moss were hanging from every branch, bushes exploded in all directions, beautiful flowers accented the green with splashes of yellow, white, purple, orange.
It was the perfect gorilla habitat, but unfortunately we saw only saw their droppings. We passed a trail leading to the grave of Diane Fossey, the American biologist who lived in these mountains to study the gorillas and was killed for her anti-poaching efforts. We stopped to breathe the fresh mountain air, looking out over the farms now tiny below us.
After an hour of steep, muddy climbing, Anette turned to me and said she didn’t think she could go on; after being with fever for the last few days, she felt exhausted and not up to climbing. We rested, rallied our spirits, and she continued to trudge on despite her total fatigue. 45 minutes later, she stopped again, but our traveling companions helped motivate her and again she found the strength to continue.
The next time she stopped, I told her to remember her grandmother, who endured freezing winter fishing trips from Norway to Iceland in the 1950s, and that her strength ran in Anette’s blood. Sadly, when we came back to Kigali the next day, we got a phone call telling us that Martha Kyvik had passed away at the age of 100. So on her grandmother’s last day on earth, Anette, despite her extreme exhaustion, found the strength to climb an 11,000 foot volcano. Coincidence?
As we reached the top of the volcano, a cold, wet wind blew through the jungle, chilling us to the bone. When we broke out on top, at 11,000 feet, the sun came out as if to congratulate us, and we sat for fifteen minutes devouring bread, cheese and meat as we stared down into the gorgeous crater lake. In the distance we saw a snow-covered peak. I later read that in November 1993, several teenage girls were abducted and killed high up the slopes of that mountain; one in a series of massacres leading up to the awful climax.
Already caked in mud up to our knees from the ascent, the mud would become the real enemy on our descent. Each of us slipped several times, and I landed flat on my back more than once. We have never been muddier in all our lives. We sank into a profound sleep that night, and when we returned to our Kigali hotel the next day, we gave our shoes, socks and pants a proper bath.
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