Orchids Safari Club Bukavu

This weekend we had a 2 hrs. ride to Gisenyi at Kivu lake.<br>We went up to 3500m above sea level and came back to 1475m<br>By luck we met our ambassador and his wife, accompanied by Dr. Manig (head of division Africa, crosscutting issues). Ten minutes after we ordered our beers, Mr Büsing (head of DW) and his wife arrived.<br>At night we had diner together, and it got very late with a lot of wine, but a very nice evening and a beautiful weekend.<br>

2 hours later we drive into Ruhengeri. There are no street lights to be spoken of and yet there are still fleets of people walking along roadsides, or even in the middle of the road. People you only see when you're almost running over them. Or boys on bikes with water or milk holders on the back. I&#8217;d make it, driving here, but I&#8217;d be exhausted at the strain of watching out for all these people! Jimmy explains how there is a "leader" for every 10 houses who report to the leaders for ...

... big, rich, show-off westerner. The best I could do was a strong metal door frame in the corner of the back park but it was kind of in public viewing. I started to do my thing and quickly noticed a mother and son peeking through an ivy covered fence. I smiled and waived and they were only watching for a few minutes before they went on with their business. After about 15 minutes of me working out, I turn around and find an African woman sitting on a chair ...

Mr Mundeli arrived at Chez Lando this morning at 7:30 as planned. What wasn't according to plan was that the electronic credit card verification service was working; it hadn't been working for 3 days. I had checked earlier. This is the downside of Chez Lando. It is inexpensive (though prices are creeping up), clean and pleasant - especially the new rooms, but it's sometimes impossible to pay with a card because the system goes down for days. I've had ...

Didi and I got to the Boat launch at about 7:00am for the 8:00am boat trip to Bukavu, which is on the south end of Lake Kivu. The short boat trip allowed us to avoid the hideous Congolese roads that would take about 9 hours by van. I am glad we arrived early because the customs officers were very interested in making some money on the side. They claimed that my visa was not valid for travel outside of Goma and that I would need to pay another $30. Now I ...

After exploring and admiring the wonderful nature of the Nyungwe Forest, we continou our way to Cyangugu at Lake Kivu, where we check in at Hotel du Lac before sunset. Hotel du Lac is a nice hotel near the Rusizi river. The Rusizi river forms the frontier with Congo ...

Overheard on the boat to Bukavu: 'The MLC [Bemba's party] will share control of the Senate with RCD-Goma.' - 'Thieves politics.' - 'Ah, mon cher, they're all the same. Why else would a man sell his house to get into parliament if not in hope of buying three more?'

Fiona Hello again! I get to tell you about our second day of gorilla trekking. I must admit that after the first day (a) I was shattered and (b) I wasn't sure if we could improve on what we had seen the day before. I was wrong. We arrived in the morning and were assigned to the Sabyinyo group which is a much smaller group of about 10 gorillas. It is special because it has the largest silverback gorilla in Rwanda. This time there were only two other people in our ...

Richard Having arrived at the Kinigi Mountain Lodge we headed off to bed early in readiness for our very early start the next morning. Everyone has to be at the Park Headquarters by 7am to start the trekking as groups have to be allocated and we all have to be briefed, this means a 5.30 wake up call! There are 8 gorilla groups in the National Park, 5 which are used for tourist trekking and 3 which are solely for research. We had discussed with Innocent which group we would like to see ...

Richard It was with some trepidation that we met our guide for the gorilla trekking - Innocent - as we would be spending the next 4 days with him. First impressions of Innocent were good - he seemed very open and smiley - so we packed up the rucksacks in the jeep and headed off to the mountains. The journey to Kinigi was fascinating. First off we saw a whole new side to Kigali which we had not seen before (inevitably it was over another hill) being the areas where most of the locals live ...