As the construction at Kadahenda nears completion, the team got a welcome break from the long days and prying children. We spent Friday night in Kigali, a 2 hour drive from Jean’s home in Musanze, and had to say goodbye to our mentor and friend Travis. Of course not before heading to one of our new favorite restaurants, an Ethiopian place on the outskirts of town (side note: don’t expect any other customers if you’re there before 9pm). After a sad round of goodbyes and a night in a hotel, the team set off towards Akagera National Park for our weekend safari.
Three hours and a covid test later, we made it into the park and transitioned from our roles at the site into full blown tourists. I’d like to take a moment now to reintroduce each of our members.
Megan Finnigan: Navigations expert and pizza critic
Jack Harris: Vice chancellor of wanting to see a lion
Catherine Patton: Sgt. General of animal spotting, claims to have seen a lion
Aria Mundy: Little miss asleep the whole time
Jean d’amour Manirere: Certified tour guide, executive decision maker, comic relief
Great. Now that you are all familiar with each other, let’s talk about our first day in the park. We opted to take the plains trail in the west of the park for this leg, so a good portion of our time was spent mistaking grass for different African animals. After enough false alarms, none of us expected Catherine to spot the head of a giraffe peaking over a hill. Two giraffes (!) eating from a tree right next to the road. Jean tells us this is pretty rareto see here in Akagera, so we were very excited to be there to see it. The rest of the drive included buffalo, zebra, and baboon sightings, and we called it a night.
Arriving at our hotel was a shock to say the least. We were greeted by hot towels and smoothies in the lobby, quite the change from our concrete covered clothes and packed car rides. We enjoyed a huge buffet dinner with Rwandan classics and American favorites and ended the night outside with the live band. Jean continued to show off his fantastic dance moves and was able to convince us all to join him. And, after some more chatting with the band’s manager, our very own Megan Finnigan got the chance to jam on the saxophone with the hotel band. We were all very impressed to say the least.
The next morning was another trip around the park, this time taking the lakeshore path to the east. We saw more zebras and baboons on the way, taking time at each break in the plants to look for hippos and crocodiles in the lake. While trekking through the tall shrubs we saw huge numbers of other critters small and large. The complete list will be included below. But as we turned back for the day, we decided to take another shot along the plains trail to look for elephants and whatever else we might see (this was a great idea). Maybe an hour down the trail, we spotted it again: Giraffes. And not just the two from last night, a family of three, then five, then seven giraffes all walking together down the hill snacking on the foliage. What a highlight. If two giraffes is rare, seven must be a record. We were all stoked to just sit and watch these giants roll through. But the daunting drive back to Musanze was weighing on us so we packed up and headed home. Five hours of Rwandan traffic, and many many car naps later, we made it safely home and straight to bed.
What an adventure! Simultaneously the dirtiest and cleanest we’ve been this trip. Hope you all get the chance to check out this amazing bit of nature someday :)
Thanks for reading,
Jack
Complete Animal List:
Zebra
Buffalo
Monkey
Guinea Fowl
Kingfisher
Giraffe
Hippo
Crocodile
Baboon
Warthog
Topi
Defassa Waterbuck
Honey Badger
Unidentified weasel looking creature
Turtle
Vultures, eagles, ospreys
Herons, cranes, ibis, and all number of other tall water birds
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