backpacking africa

Before we began our trip, both Marya and I asked the question, "can you backpack through Africa?" I decided to seek advice from the trusty internet and started by scouring various travel forums such as Lonely Planet's ThornTree. It seemed the internet consensus was, "Not really. No one does it. It's more dangerous and more difficult than other backpacker-friendly places like Southeast Asia."

But here I was, riding on the back of a motorcycle, whizzing across Uganda with a backpack strapped precariously to my back, hanging over the back of the motorcycle. Every time the driver accelerated or went up a steep incline, I felt the weight of the backpack behind me, attempting to wrench me off the back and send me to a far-off Ugandan hospital. Here In Uganda, motorcycles-turned-taxis are called boda-bodas. Legend says that the first motorcycle taxis used to transport people from border town to border town and, because Ugandans like to make names obvious, they named them "border-borders" which becomes boda-boda when you put on your African accent. It seemed fitting then that we were bodabodaing towards the sleepy border post of Cyanika which would lead us on into Rwanda. 

Mgahinga

We had just spent two nights in the equally-sleepy, one-street town of Kisoro in the shadow of three classic, conical volcanoes. Kisoro SHOULD be a backpackers paradise. It is full of relatively cheap guest houses, chill cafés and incredibly welcoming and friendly residents. In the surrounding area there are hikes, treks, gorillas, lakes and even snake tracking (for all those people that love tracking snakes). But the guest houses were empty. The cafés longed for hippies with dreads to sip their delicious African tea. The town is ripe for tourism but, as far as I could tell, we were the only backpackers in town. Occasionally, a convoy of shiny jeeps full of pampered tourists would roll through town on their way to a private gorilla tour. They probably came straight from Kigali or one of the nearby $500-per-night safari lodges but they didn't seem to stay in town. 

Perhaps Kisoro is not the thriving backpacker town it wishes it was because it costs $700 each to go on a 4-hour gorilla tracking hike which we opted out of to save our bank account. All the tourist activities are prohibitively expensive in Africa which in many ways is beneficial because it stops the gorilla treks from turning into a zoo as people file through to watch the gorillas for the same entrance fee (and experience) as the Calgary Zoo. Kisoro may also be lacking in backpacking hippies because the town is a windy, 7-hour drive from Mbarara with no bus services and only hitch-hiking via Toyota Corolla as the transport option. Or maybe it's because this town in southwest Uganda is only 5 km from the Congolese border where jungles are supposedly teeming with rebel groups, land mines, rape and murder. There are certainly reasons why this is off the backpacker trail but Marya and I were loving it. We basically had the town to ourselves. No touts. No scammers. No tourist traps. Just genuinely friendly, helpful people who give you a good price and reliable information. This could easily be the next backpacker trail following in the footsteps of Laos' hippie trail, assuming the Congo cleans up its act and Uganda brings tourist-friendly bus services to town. 

A year or two ago, the leader of a major Congolese rebel group was captured on the Ugandan side of the border about 3 km from Kisoro in nearby Mgahinga National Park. Mgahinga was the park that housed those three, picture-perfect volcanoes I mentioned earlier and it was Mgahinga that had brought us so far off the tourist trail as we aimed to climb the second highest of the three volcanoes: Mount Sabinyo. To ease my mother's worry, the Congo has supposedly become more stable in recent months and it was unlikely that rebel groups would be roaming the park. As an extra assurance, we were accompanied on our hike by a guard with an AK-47 who said the gun was primarily for insurance if we came face to face with an angry elephant or water buffalo. Perhaps this is more cause for worry because now we had to worry about rebels, angry elephants AND the guy with the AK killing and robbing us at gun point in the remote national park. So, you may be asking, why were we climbing this volcano? The somewhat silly and trivial reason for climbing the 3700 meter volcano was because the peak lay at the tri-point of three countries: Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which was a pointless geographical oddity that somehow made the mountain more appealing. The more practical reason for doing the hike was in preparation for our assault on Kilimanjaro planned a week later in Tanzania. It would be good to get our hiking legs back. 

The hike up Sabinyo was --in a word-- exhausting. The majority of the hike was along steep, mist-shrouded ridges that shot up to the sky like knives. The mist was thick and dulled all noise except for your own panting as you climbed higher and higher. Much of the way was so steep that they had installed rickety and precarious ladders that we had to scramble up; this was made all the more difficult because of the ever-present mist, which soaked the ladders into slippery death traps. The summit was anticlimactic because of the mist. I climb mountains for the views and the mist dampened that experience (ha!). But we did eat lunch in the Congo and I wasn't immediately swarmed by rebels, so it wasn't all that bad. Our guide didn't shoot us in the back and throw us off the steep, spindly ridges, nor did we encounter a rampaging elephant. On the descent, the clouds parted and we were rewarded with some great views of Kisoro, the Congolese jungles to the west and Rwanda's rolling hills to the south. We couldn't enjoy the views much because we were busy descending those slippery ladders which required great concentration. By the time we landed back in Kisoro, our legs were jelly. The hiking legs we meant to get back turned into screaming-pain legs the next morning. We could barely move. 

Rwandan hospitals

But move we did, on into Rwanda via boda-boda to Cyanika and then minibus from Cyanika to Gisenyi. Gisenyi is a city of about 400,000 lying on the shores of Lake Kivu with its western city limits marked by the Congolese border. Across the border is the city of Goma which has been in the news as the major centre in war-torn Congo and the major base for UN and other aid organizations in the Congo. It was attacked by rebels a few months ago, but the UN recently increased their manpower in the region and the UN, along with the Congolese army, have pushed the rebels back deeper into the jungles. Goma has also been in the news because the city was destroyed in 2002 by the eruption of nearby Nyiragongo Volcano. Lava flowed through the streets and buried much of the city like a modern-day Pompeii. Nyiragongo loomed large on the horizon. It was only about 5 km from Gisenyi. I have dreamt of climbing the volcano for years but, sadly, the volcano is currently closed to tourism. The Belgian director of Nyiragongo's national park had been shot a few months ago in the park, the corrosive ash spouting from the bubbling lava lake has destroyed the huts and rebels have lain landmines on the trails. Now, I love adventure but there is a line between adventure and stupidity. I left my Nyiragongo-climbing shoes behind for another day when the region is safer.

If rebels, landmines and lava aren't enough to deter you from the region there's more! Lake Kivu is a lake that will kill you if you aren't careful. The lake has been known to have "limnic eruptions" which are basically large amounts of CO2 and other gases which erupt from below and rise to the surface. Depending on wind, the cocktail of poisonous gases will glide into town and kill you by asphyxiation. The eruptions are rare, but we were still told not to swim in the lake unless you see locals swimming as well. And if the others' swimming turns to dying, then maybe you shouldn't swim there. 

So, in this land where everything is trying to kill you, it only seemed fitting that Marya soon developed a violent fever and stomach pains the first day we were there. I convinced her to go to the hospital despite her objections as she pretended to be fine while shivering violently. Marya had just spent a month treating people as a docta in a Ugandan hospital and now the tables had turned and she was the patient in a Rwandan hospital. The whole situation was made more difficult because most well-educated people in Rwanda speak fluent French but poor English. I also got to experience firsthand the inefficiencies that Marya had been telling me about for the past month. First of all, you have to pay for everything; from the meds and needles to the gloves and iodine the doctors use, you pay for it all. But, for some reason, the place where you pay and the place where you pick up meds and supplies are at opposite sides of the hospital grounds. So every time a doctor prescribes something or needs a test done, a family member or friend of the sick person would have to go wait in a massive line up to pay and then walk all the way across the hospital to wait in another massive line to pick up the meds or supplies. It was insanely inefficient. Despite the inefficiencies that seemed so reminiscent of Uganda, Rwanda's medical system was slightly better in terms of procedures, methods and availability of medicines and supplies. They actually cleaned areas before jabbing needles and had proper vacuum tubes for taking blood and stuff. 

It was a rough night in the hospital with Marya on rounds of IV medicines to get rid of the pesky parasites partying in her gut. Gisenyi was not a fun city. The hospital and the many geological methods of death aside, it still made me uncomfortable. The roads were all gravel and there were no street lights at all. The sun set at 6 pm and after that, the streets quickly emptied and became dark, dusty and dangerous. The layout of the city was very confusing and spread out making it difficult to get around. All I wanted was a good, quick, reliable meal that I could eat and bring leftovers to Marya. Subway? Opa? Earl's? Nothing. Never had I craved food from home so much. When your wife is sick in hospital, you don't want to be wandering around a foreign city, lost and in the dark, searching for a bite to eat. 

But hey, don't let any of this discourage you from visiting Gisenyi. Lovely city. 

Kwibohora 2014

We were very fortunate to arrive in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, on July 3rd, just one day before the 20 year anniversary of the end of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi. It was a weird twist of fate that Marya's sickness forced us to change our original plans so that we ended up in Kigali earlier than intended. She was on a concoction of drugs to stop the parasite party and was feeling significantly better but we still decided to head to Kigali earlier  so that we would be nearer to larger and better medical centres. 

Thus we ended up at Amahoro ("peace" in local language) Stadium in Kigali on July 4th which is Liberation Day in Rwanda. This day marks when the militia group known as the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) entered Kigali and stopped the genocide. The RPF was then considered a "rebel group" lead by Paul Kagame. Twenty years on, Paul Kagame is the much-loved president of the small country and has helped lead the country to greater prosperity, as it is now one of the fastest growing African economies. Rwanda has made leaps and bounds in almost all indicators of development in the last 20 years, from healthcare to education to internet infrastructure to gender equality. 

I think Rwandans have a lot to be proud of considering the country was in ruins 20 years ago, with a million dead bodies littering the streets and bitter tribal divisions that led to deep distrust of even your own neighbours. It's impressive that the country rebounded and rebranded everyone as "Rwandan". The government no longer even acknowledges tribes. And in Amahoro Stadium, the stands were full of young Rwandans, many probably around my age who would have only been young children when the genocide happened. The presidents of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia were all in attendance as well as delegates from embassies for countries around the world. There were lengthy and impressive military formations, marching bands, traditional dancers and much pomp and circumstance. It was very cool and really gave a great taste of Rwandan culture considering we were only in the country for a short week. 

Paul Kagame gave a speech focusing on hope for the future and learning from mistakes. It was a very optimistic speech but the whole stadium certainly had a somber air around it. People sat quietly in the stands. There was some cheering and applause but most of the time it was shockingly quiet for a crowd of thousands of people. It blows my mind that everyone in that stadium over 20 years old likely witnessed or participated in slaughtering their fellow citizens. 

While in Kigali, we also thought it fitting to stop at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which houses a very informative and disturbing museum about the events surrounding the genocide. I found that the most shocking part is how neighbours, friends, employees and bosses all turned on each other. Regular citizens participated. It leaves you with the eerie feeling as you walk around Kigali and see 40 or 50 year old men walking past you and you contemplate how many of them have hacked or stoned someone as part of a disturbing act of genocidal mob violence. The depths of human violence are often unfathomable. 

The disturbing facts of the past should not dampen the optimistic hopes for the future. Rwanda seems to have done an incredible job of learning from their mistakes and moving on. It seems to have been a concerted effort by the government, the military and the populace to create a highly successful state. It is a great example of the people themselves realizing how superficial their differences are. The end of the genocide was not imposed by foreign powers, it was brought to an end by the people themselves. As I read the news about tribal or sectarian violence in Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Somalia, I wish more people could somehow, by some impossible act of popular consensus, follow Rwanda's example. 

Between the brutal hike, the hospital trips in Gisenyi and the depressing history lessons in Kigali, it might sound like our short 10 days backpacking through southwestern Uganda and Rwanda wasn't enjoyable. That's far from true. It was a great time with many memorable moments. It's a beautiful area of the world. In fact, it's one of the few places where I already have a list going of the things I want to do when I come back! It was a very brief experience, but we did manage to backpack through Africa, taking local transport rather than private safari jeep, staying in churches rather than posh hotels and eating at -- ok, food is our one weakness as we definitely ate out at fancier Western-style restaurants! I could go for some Subway right now...