Lasting impressions of Rwanda

Our Rwanda sector of our trip has been very expensive, but a lot of that was due to the high cost of permits. Permits for Gorilla tracking cost $750 per person per day, but that fee funds a lot of conservation efforts. 10% of the money goes directly to local communities for education, roads and healthcare. A lot of the funding goes towards paying for guides and trackers - and many of the old trackers are former poachers. 

We also stayed at some amazing hotels in Rwanda.

All of them except one had a great gym and beautiful outdoor heated pools. Steve was working out at the gym in Kigali when one of the trainers asked him what he did to work out. 
" Mountain climbing"
" Oh, marathon running! Excellent!"
"No, sorry, I said mountain climbing. I ran one marathon once, but I would not run another. They are way too difficult."
" They are not that difficult. You know, there are even some white people who can run marathons!"

The last thing that we did before leaving Rwanda was climb Mount Bisoke, a 3700 m volcano that is the 3rd highest mountain in Rwanda. It is illegal to hike in the park without a guide, so it cost us about $50 each for the trip. For our fee, the Rwandan government sent a troupe of 8 soldiers out at dawn to ensure that no rebels had snuck accross the border from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When we actually did the hike, 3 soldiers walked 50m in front of us and two more walked 25 m behind us to ensure that we were not bothered by rogue elephants or buffalo. All of them were armed with semi automatic rifles. 

We also had a private guide who walked with us. 

Apparently, we set a new speed record for a tourist ascent, although the guides have done the climb faster when they did not have any tourists and the trail was dry.  

It was the muddiest trek of our lives! They don't call it rain forest for nothing! Most of the time, we were ankle deep in mud. It was super fun coming down - parts of it were like running scree, parts of it were like skiing, and parts were like sliding down a giant mountain of snot. We figured that both of us would wipe out at least twice, but it turned out that our butts only hit the mud once each. When we returned to our hotel after any of our wildlife viewing, the bell staff would take our mud soaked shoes and rain pants and return them, cleaned, a few hours later. For the hike,  we had the brilliant idea of renting rubber boots. Thank goodness that we did otherwise they may not have let us on the plane in Kigale!