Into the fire and ash

• Eadamson's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Goma

Trip Start Jan 26, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Feb 06, 2008 Next
Entry

  Goma, Congo - The Dem. Repub.
Saturday, August 4, 2007

I had been struggling with the idea for some time, ever since I started thinking about tracking mountain gorillas, of visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This region of East Africa is both historically, and presently, tormented by rebel forces committing all sorts of atrocities. While in the past Rwanda and Uganda have played the fool or whatnot, today it is the DRC that is suffering from epidemic levels of rape and murder, especially in the Kivu region, which borders with Rwanda and Uganda.

The DRC is no longer a terrible kleptocracy under Mobutu (whose self-proclaimed full name, apparently, translated into all sorts of things similar to "the fearless leader who goes from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake" with some other cookies in there too). Now the country is embroiled in bitter civil war, and playing unhappy host to the Hutu forces, often disguised as refugees, who carried out much of the killings in the Rwandan genocide

Bullethole-riddled entry sign, Mt. Nyiragongo

. The history of tribal conflict is long and complicated, but now North and South Kivu play epicenter.

Kivu Lake, incidentally, is just south of the Virungas volcanoes. Thus, all mountain gorilla trekkers, in Rwanda and DRC, but also in one park in Uganda, are hiking through mountains where it is assumed some amount of rebel forces are hiding. There are not infrequent reports of skirmishes, killings, or other sorts of violence on these slopes, as well as in the valleys stretching west to the DRC, as well as south near Kivu Lake. In the middle of this region is Goma, the UN's center for their mission in the DRC (www.monuc.org). Goma itself is thought to be safe - at least in the daytime, as nighttime brings some amount of drunken gun-wielding and general unruliness, and possibly even banditry.

Goma is just across the Rwandan border, and only about 70km from where I was based to track gorillas. In the DRC, there are two tourist attractions (this is an understatement, as the country is enormous, but right now safety-conscious travellers do not go anywhere else in the country other than Goma, and even then very carefully). One is tracking mountain gorillas, for those who show up without advanced booking or want the $200 discount on permits and also a hefty increase in risk

The camp at the summit of Mt. Nyiragongo

. The other is climbing the active volcano, Mt. Nyiragongo, which erupted violently in 2002 and covered much of Goma itself with 10+ feet of lava and ash. After tracking the Susa group in Rwanda, I decided no other gorilla experience could top it and would probably end anticlimactically. Seeing an active volcano's burning red crater at night, however, was something I was quite interested to experience.

You can arrange a trip into Goma on your own, but you'd better be extremely resourceful. I opted to let someone else figure out the details, as I felt scared enough travelling into a UN-controlled zone where travellers, in the opinions of State Departments everywhere, should not go. There are two known tour companies in Goma, and I contacted the one that was around first. Alex was a helpful guy, and although he would be ripping me off a bit in the end, did most of what he could to ensure a smooth stay. Although you could tell that, in talking to you, he was mostly talking to your wallet.

Nonetheless, Alex was going to a man to the border to meet me. I had to make my way from Ruhengeri, about 70km away, by local minibus. The first half of the day, everything was closed due to a Gacaca trial, so I didn't head out until later. By the time I finally got moving, it was 3pm, and I was a bit worried

Cooking potatoes and hanging out at the coal fire

. I arrived in Gisenyi on the Rwanda side at 4:55, called Alex. Isn't the border closing? He assured me I had until six, that his man would meet me on the Rwanda side of the border. I had to catch a boda boda, or motorcycle taxi, helmetless, to get down the rough roads to the border posts. I have taken more boda boda rides in East Africa than I would ever care to take, especially the times that they have been helmetless. These are usually in the poor areas where it is literally that or walking 5-10 miles.

I got to the border around 5:05 and proceeded to spend the most stressful longest minutes of my life. After all, I was sitting at the border of the DRC and Rwanda. This is a safe border, but isn't a border a pretty scary place anyway? Especially as the sky was darkening a bit and the winds kicking up. I waited until 5:07. Still no guy. Flipped out some more. 5:11. 5:17. 5:19. All sorts of important looking tinted-window white landrovers were zooming through the gates towards Rwanda, with insignias like UNICEF, WFP, UN +. Pedestrians with work cards crossed the border as well in strikingly large numbers. 5:21. I resolved that at 5:40 I would take a boda boda back up to a hostel in Gisenyi. 5:23, 5:27, etc. etc., until finally a slight man of around 30 walked beeline up to me at 5:35pm. It had been a hell of a taxing few minutes. I asked if it was too late to cross, considering process and the time left before closing

The Porters' sleeping hut, Nyiragongo

. He assured me we were fine. Only barely, as it turned out.

Rwanda was no problem, although people are starting to doubt that my passport is actually mine. My hair is 6 months long and my beard is around 3. I look nothing like the hairless 20 year old from my passport photo. We walked past the guards and entered the border control house for the DRC. Three very kind desk clerks in an outer room stamping work cards furiously, and a well-lit back office where the border manager man sat, imperially, in a DRC military outfit and beret. A very large, very dark man, who spoke only French in kind and welcoming tones. He asked me why I had grown my beard, I told him it was tradition, we exchanged some other pleasantries. He approved my visa, and handed it to a clerk. All was going swimmingly until she couldn't find the Rwanda exit stamp.

Here's the thing: I have been travelling on my Australian passport for the entire trip, owing to much lower visa costs, by a factor of 3, than US or Canada. However, in Rwanda, since the US has been so helpful post-genocide, there is no visa at all required for a Yank, whereas many others have to fork out US$60. I decided to use USA for Rwanda, and switch back to AUS afterwards. Having been all my life a tri-passport holder, such behaviors have never seemed problematic to me, nor have they ever really presented difficulties

The coal fire at night

.

In the DRC, this was different. As she looked to me for explanation, I showed her my USA passport with the Rwanda exit stamp. This was not good at all. While in my mind it was only a procedural problem, the big border official man thought differently. He called my escort into the office to ask him a barrage of questions in French. My escort asked me why I had used different passports. I explained the visa money situation, but I also tried to explain that I felt just as Australian as American, nationality wise. I felt a bit guilty, or sheepish, for being able to choose. Lots more French dialogue, and some translated fatherly lecturing about the logic of using one passport. One poignant line: "we have no problem with Americans here." I gathered that the man thought I was evading, hiding something. At any rate, at around 6:10, after the border had officially shut, I had my visa and walked out of the building, shaken but resolved to get to the hotel.

And we walked into a military procession. AK47 wielding soldiers in bunches - a few ambling soldiers carrying rocket-propelled grenades. Silence, and a convoy of white land rovers driving by. My guide whispered that it might have been for a recently deceased General. We caught two boda-bodas, again helmetless, and drove for a short while behind a troop carrying truck

Burning disk of fire

. As we passed the truck, I met eyes with a soldier wrapping a rambo-style ammo belt around his hand, his .50caliber machine gun resting on his leg as he sat.

And we zoomed and bumped our way chaotically into chaos itself. It was already nearing nighttime; colors were greying. The city itself, the roads were blackened with dirty ash. The buildings likewise colorless and dark. Volcanic rocks strewn about, piled next to buildings that themselves looked like piled cement and volcanic rock. An eerie, smoky quality of the entire city. Intersections, crazy black crosses of roads where no order but opportunity exists for controlling traffic. See a space between some trucks and motorbikes, gun it through. Shabbiness everywhere, ashen children running along the streets. No streetlights, no illuminated advertising billboards, no lights at all that I could see well. Just darkness falling as we zoomed up to my hotel.

The hotel, as is the case with many buildings in Goma, used to have three floors above ground. After Nyiragongo erupted in 2002, the ground floor became the basement. We descend into a grubby white-tiled room, then up some stairs and onto skinny volcanic rock alley between the two sides of the two-story, two-building hotel. Clothes are hanging to dry, a generator coughs and hammers at one end, and my room at the other

Burning disk of fire 2

. There is electricity in the hotel, provided by the generator. All the lights flicker in time with the jackhammering engine, and every 20 minutes or so, the generator catches and downshifts and all power goes out. Total darkness. I ate some peanut butter and bread and went to sleep. Nothing else to do, owing to the bandits and the lack of electricity.

In the morning, I was to depart for the volcano. In daytime, the town is slightly less diabolical, but still, fields of black rock still interspersed among the standing buildings, and piled rock all over the place. The driver dropped me off at the only supermarket in the area, as far
as I could tell, a dusty little room with some rows of canned goods and
other things. A huge UN truck pulled up outside and some officers came out to do some shopping as well - Indian delegates. Then we drove the 40 minutes or so out of town, past UN vehicle compounds, UN soldier compounds, UN airports, refugee camps, very poor areas, vast fields of black volcanic rock. The terrain got more jungly, but always there was some black rock popping up or heaping out of the greenery.

Finally reached the base of the volcano and the national park office

Burning disk of fire, a bit calmer

. The office turned out to be, literally, an open hut. Four wooden posts, straw and tin roof, and benches. I had a permit and showed it to the guys. I refused a porter, so my guide and I set off. Just me, my guide, and his AK-47.

The hike was 4.5 hours total. First 45 minutes in muddy ascending rainforest. Then, 3 hours of painful, ever-steepening lava flow. We followed this lava flow all the way up the slopes, past another crater, into more heavy rainforest. Another 40 minutes in steep heavy rainforest on the slopes, and we reached a collapsing tin shack where the porters sleep. Another 20 minutes through highly steep sparse volcanic scree, and we reached the summit. It was a very, very hard hike. I felt completely exhausted at the end of it. I ate a Snickers bar and drank orange juice. We had ascended to 3470m, from what was apparently 2000m but could have been somewhere in the 2000-2400m range. It hurt, a lot.

The porters, of course, walked briskly up the mountain in cheap foam sandals. This being the DRC, they also depend on you to bring them food. I had no equipment and dry food only for myself, but there was a group of four Spanish adults who had brought food for themselves and, thus, the porters and guides. I shared some Snickers and rolls with my guide on the ascent and descent, though, and he ate well at the top

Glowing memorial cross at the summit of Nyiragongo

.

We camped right on the rim of the crater. About a 20ft walk to view a 100m precipice, then sloping downwards to the crater bottom. All through the day and night, steamy pungent volcanic gases seeped out of the rock next to our tents. Most of the afternoon, it was too foggy or rainy to see anything. But, at times, and into the night, the crater bowl would clear and the fiery lava pit would be clearly visible to the eye.

A fiery pit of lava, burping and bubbling and sometimes violently bursting upwards, solidifying into little rock continents, which drifted around as a crusty top with veiny lava borders in between islands, sometimes getting swallowed quickly by a spurt of red magma. At night, the pit glowed hellishly, the lavas a burning orange and red with accents of purple and blue. It made a noise like a murderous ocean. A roaring, churning, thrashing, sizzling lake of fire. It was amazing.

The descent the next morning was painful as hell on my legs. After waiting for my ride to pick me up again, and stopping quickly at the office of the "agency," or Alex, I was hurried to the border. You see, I had found out after a bit more discussion with my chaperone that the border official thought I was potentially something very dangerous

The crater from a distance, nighttime

. A criminal, a spy, at any rate someone who wanted to conceal their identity in a beard, hair, and multiple passports. My chaperone explained to me that in East Africa, you have one nationality. If you claim another, you immediately renounce your first. People with more than one nationality are viewed with distrust - they are maybe escaping bad things from the past, or are maybe trying to do bad things. The situation is very tense, as I found out personally. Regardless, the border official was amicable in seeing me out of his country once he knew I was definitely leaving after the volcano.

So I did leave. I gazed across the River Styx at the gates of Hell, twice, really. Didn't ever put myself in real danger, but put myself just close enough to peer at it, feel afraid, and leave before any random occurrence sucked me into the violence. And lived to tell the tale, if you want to think dramatically. I am glad I went, and I wouldn't go back soon. Then, I went to Uganda, and now there's only one more post to update before we're all caught up.

Slideshow Print this entry Share Goma hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry