This weekend a group of us went to climb Gahinga, one of Rwanda’s volcanos. At 3,474 m above sea level it is the lowest and easiest. We set off on Saturday afternoon, the 10 of us crammed into two cars, to drive for about 2.5 hrs to the town of Musanze, in the far north. There we had dinner in a very tasty Italian restaurant (bizarre), and after a certain amount of driving around lost in the dark, arrived at a guest house close to the base of the mountain, where we got bed and breakfast for the princely sum of RWF10,000 (£10).
The next morning we woke up early and were at the park registration centre for 7am. Entry to the national parks in Rwanda is tightly controlled and you have to take a guide. We met our guide, Bosco, and then drove for about 45 minutes over dirt roads to the trailhead at around 2,300 m. There we met several guards with guns and machetes, who would walk with us. The guns are for elephants and buffalo, and the machetes are for the vegetation.
The first part of the walk felt hard – steep and in full sun. After about 50 minutes we entered a bamboo forest which covers the middle slopes, and all my tiredness was forgotten. It was cool and shady, and after the constant dust of the Rwandan dry season, it was nice to feel mud under my feet! We continued climbing, and as we emerged from the bamboo forest the gradient steepened. Eventually we needed to pull on trees and roots to make progress and I was glad of the bamboo walking pole that one of the guards had cut for me.
After about 3 hours of walking, we emerged onto the summit. Gahinga is dormant, and the crater is now filled with a swamp. The summit was very beautiful, lush, green and peaceful with lots of birds. We ate lunch there and then descended by the same route. On the way back through the bamboo forest we were lucky enough to see a troop of golden monkeys swinging through the bamboo above our heads. Bosco told us they are endemic only to that region.
On the descent we also had great views of Mount Sabinyo, another higher volcano which has three summits and involves ladders and scrambling on the ascent. I can’t wait to try that one!
First view of Mount Gahinga
The magical bamboo forest
An elephant footprint! We saw loads of these.
The crater swamp. Actually it’s not that swampy, at least in the dry season. I walked across and kept my feet dry.
Looking across to Uganda from the summit.
Picnic on Mount Gahinga (it’s much easier when you don’t have to escape from a PoW camp to do it).
Sabinyo – the next objective!
Rwanda Geotechnics 