Monkeying around

January 4th, 2015

It is a weird feeling not working, but here we are today. With both our translators lecturing today (they are both pastors) we had no choice but to relax. Nikki, Mike, and myself decided to hike Bisoke, a volcano in one of Rwanda's National Parks, while Christian decided to go meditate and write in the diary (sorry journal) at the Burera lake shore. His plans were destroyed by the endless swarms of children who decided that he was the most interesting thing that they had ever seen. It is hard to find Zen with so many distractions. The lake was pretty though.

The rest of the team had a much more grueling day, with a nice brisk start at 6:30. We drove up to the park entrance to pay for permits and were grouped with the other members hiking our trail. A English professor of Linguistics and several French Engineers joined us, all of which spoke French, except me...Guess who got left out of all the conversation...After a short briefing of the hike that we were going on (in French) and introductions of names (in French) we drove approximately 30 minutes along a road so rough our driver called it our free massage. We would appreciate it more on the way down.

The hike was extremely difficult, starting muddy and steep and turning into muddy and straight up. The Rwandan guides also did not believe in stopping, at all. They were in good shape from hiking every couple of days and as a result pushed and cajoled the party into paces that challenged the best of us and even proved too difficult for one of the ladies hiking with us. She turned back only half an hour from the top. Three hours of huffing and puffing our way through the brush paid off however, resulting in the following view.

Can you guess who managed to get a chubby little finger in the blog. The entire trip was amazing, with both dense jungle and rocky outcroppings. I will attach more below, but this is the end of the story, just weary muscles and lots of sleep have been ordered and I am not one to disobey.