The Road ro Ruhengeri

Apr 6th

Off to church with Tom. It’s the start of Genocide memorial week so we decide to go formal in long-sleeved shirts and jackets, assuming there’ll be something special and ceremonial about the service. . Even at 9.30 it’s hotting up (there’s a marked increase in temperature every day now, especially between about eleven and three) and we’re nearly melting by the time we reach church. On arrival we find we’re a bit overdressed; nobody else looks any more got up than usual. And the service is much the same as usual. No matter, we muzungus must show we can still scrub up when it’s appropriate!

There’s a visiting choir from Kamonyi, looking very smart in identical greenish robes. Interestingly, they’re predominantly elderly whereas most of the other choirs I’ve seen have lots of young people. There’s only one man in the entire choir of 36 or so. Unfortunately, because they’re visitors they’re given lots of slots to sing during the service and they’re not as good as our “Sion” youth choir (whose harmony singing is really tremendous). There’s loads of karaoke accompaniment far too heavy on the drum kits and we ought by rights to be dancing for our lives along the aisles, but somehow it comes across just a tad self conscious. I’ve heard better.

It’s obviously going to be more like a four-hour service than three, and I’m getting fidgety about the chances of getting to Kigali in time to meet up with Geert and Jan. Sure enough, in the middle of the service my phone rings, so I do a Rwandan thing and just walk out to answer it. Turns out to be Geert giving me such an early deadline that I have to leave the service midway through. Fortunately it’s in the middle of a congregational hymn which means that everyone’s jigging around in their seats, and I can slip out with minimum fuss.

Just when I want to get a fast bus to Kigali, the Atraco Express is already fully loaded and I have to get a stopper. However, this is where I get an amazing run of luck in transport. Not only is the stopper ready to go, but they insist I sit in the front middle seat. This doesn’t give me much legroom, but it’s much better than in the back. I wedge in my rucksack, climbing boots and Leki sticks (no joke with the Lekis – if the bus makes a sharp stop they might go through the windscreen). Then a young girl gets in beside me. Being chivalrous, I volunteer to hold her bag while she climbs aboard. The bag is so heavy it nearly pulls my arms out of their sockets. Feels like she’s got a rucksack full of rocks! Turns out to be manioc; she’s going home from school and seems to be bringing a week’s supply of food for her family with her. We’re so wedged in the front with bags and boots and sticks and spuds that the driver can barely change gear; he’s a Moslem and his prayer beads keep clanging against the windscreen. I ask him to explain to me the gestures all matata drivers use to warn each other about the presence of police patrols along the road, but he refuses. No matter; it’s a fast hour to Kigali; the bus is full from Gitarama so doesn’t stop to pick people up, and virtually nobody gets out until Kigali. But we pull into Nyabogogo bus station, and I have to get a second bus up to Mu Muji.

So here I am, early at Kigali and grabbing a quick drink of Ikuvugoto (yoghurt milk) when Geert texts to say he’s running late and will be another hour! After all that rushing about – I could crown him!

When he finally arrives he’s already bought our tickets to Ruhengeri, and we just have time for a second quick drink before we’re off again. The road to Ruhengri is worth it just for the ride, and I’m going to describe it in detail for you so you can follow me in your minds. From Kigali you go up an alpine-style ascent – continuous steep hill for over 10km. The road twists and turns; visibility is limited by bends and trees, and you overtake labouring lorries at your peril. There are huge bashes and dents in the safety barrier (where it exists at all – whole sections are missing; some have obviously been bulldozed into the depths below by crashing lorries). The outskirts of Kigali appear very close but impossibly low against precipitous slopes far too steep to cultivate. The smell of hot oil and labouring engine from the matata is overpowering.

Then you have a long run for about 15km along the flat top of a hill with dramatic views to distant hills on both sides. It’s an exciting ride; you can’t take your eyes from the windows. It reminds me of pictures I’veseen of Himalaya foothills. It’s exquisitely beautiful and yet it’s already different from any of the other mountain parts of Rwanda. I really can’t get my head around the sheer variety of beautiful natural landscapes, or the way the landscape is completely different whichever compass direction you follow from Kigali. Here there is the perfect mixture of forest (planted eucalypts along the roadside, conifers singly and in groves on the steeper slopes), houses dotted completely at random among the folds of earth, and cultivated fields clinging precariously to every single place where the slope angle permits. These farmers must truly have one leg shorter than the other from spending all day on these slopes!

Next comes a long, long wooded descent (not as steep or as twisty as the first climb out of Kigali) down into a narrow valley. The valley bottom is densely cultivated with maize, sugar and other crops; the villages are strung out along the valley edges on both sides. This part of the road surface is rubbish and we bump and clatter about from side to side, trying to keep to the tarmac.

We slither to a halt outside a well lit and clean looking shop, while virtually everyone leaps out of the bus. We congratulate ourselves, thinking we’re going to have oodles of room for the rest of the trip. A football match has just ended at the local stadium and hundreds and hundreds of people are slowly dispersing, on foot, back to their homes. Men and women together, and all ages, their brightly coloured robes look warm in the evening light.

Then all the people who leapt out at the shop leap back in again, clutching bags of food. This shop is obviously what passes for a motorway service station on the Ruhengeri road. There’s a noise, audible even above the engine, of scrunching into samosas and slurping from bottles of maracuja juice. Just three muzungus don’t have food; our contribution is the rumbling of hungry tummies.

The valley road is about as straight as Rwandan roads ever get (i.e. it’s wriggly but not impossible bendy), and we make good speed for half an hour. But at the end of the valley there’s another huge climb up a mountain pass. The views back along the valley are wonderful; unfortunately by this time in the afternoon the light is going so I’m afraid I haven’t got picture for you (yet). The bus strains and struggles through endless reverse curves; we’re peering at the view through a fringe of trees like someone looking out through a floppy fringe of unkempt hair. We labour over the summit and there in front of us, frighteningly close, stands an entire row of volcanoes. Not just one or two, but about eight.

Six of these are in Rwanda and two more (the most active one and the most impressively alpine looking) are in Congo. We’re very close to both Congo and Uganda here. They appear bluish-grey in the fading light, with the setting sun throwing their silhouettes into sharp relief. It’s a sight like I’ve never seen before. Even in Mexico, where there were loads of little volcanic cones, there was nothing on this scale. Eight full-sized, free standing volcanic peaks making a wall in front of you. And some of them are so perfectly shaped – if you got a primary school child to draw their idea of a volcano you could get these perfect cones shapes looming in front of us. It’s so hard to put into words just how impressive this sight is, and yet at the same time I’m not able to show you in pictures – that’s really frustrating!

The driver sighs with relief at getting us over the pass (we’ve shimmied round several broken down trucks on the way up) and we clatter down the other side, which is easily just as steep. It’s been raining this side of the pass and the road is wet. There’s a worrying smell of singeing brake pads. A short level stretch follows, and we’re in Ruhengeri town just as the sun sets. As we get out of the bus in the town centre we’re besieged by moto drivers desperate to fleece a muzungu; they’re all jostling each other because they’re so eager to get to us. One idiot rushes his bike up so close to the matata door that we can barely get out. I manage to drop a Leki stick and it clatters against his paintwork…. They’re all joking with each other, but when they see walking boots and Lekis they realise we’re not the softy gorilla watchers they’re used to, and they fall back muttering disappointedly.

Geert has been to Ruhengeri before, and has already booked us into the Hotel Muhabura (the name of one of the volcanoes), so we stride out along the Uganda road into the gathering night.

Our rooms at the hotel are adequate and the food in the restaurant is quite good. The beer is even better. But when we check whether they have arranged the vehicle, park permits etc as Geert has requested, we get nothing but evasiveness from a truly smarmy manager. I feel like doing very un-Christian things to him (remember its still Sunday) with a Leki stick. He simply will not give a simple confirmation either that everything has been booked (it patently hasn’t, despite the hotel promising Geert to sort everything for us), nor what it’s all going to cost. We have a council of war where we try to decide whether we’re going to proceed with our mountaineering, or go back home tomorrow. We go back to “Mr Greasy” and lay things on the line – either he gives us a cast iron guarantee of transport, park entry etc, and a full cost breakdown, or we’re off first thing in the morning. He’ll lose three bed nights in income. The wretched man appears to realise we won’t be fobbed off by Rwandan vagueness any more, and after an hour’s consultation with various people, all using words like “difficult” (i.e. “I’ll be charging you more than the going rate”) or “unexpected” (i.e. “if you pay me over the odds I might remember to turn up tomorrow”) or “can’t guarantee there’ll be places left” ( we’re climbing a sodding mountain, mate, not gawping at the apes), we get what we’re asking for.

While this has been going on two of the volcanoes visible from the hotel balcony – Muhabura and Gahinga – have been receding into the darkness of the Rwandan night. There’s the faintest slice of new moon as we tumble into bed. Ruhengeri is high and cold and I can’t be bothered with a mozzie net.

Best thing about today – the drive to Ruhengeri. If you’re reading this and it makes you want to come here; I assure you that you won’t be disappointed!
Worst thing about today – I’m getting blasé about church choirs who are over-reliant on the karaoke accompaniment. I think we need a month of unaccompanied singing – it’d work wonders!