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Joseph our driver and
the small boy |
Waterfall
in the forest
A
complete change for Tony Allen’s walk this
month as he swaps Andalucia for
Rwanda
This
month’s walk is a bit different from our normal Axarquia explorations
- and a bit further away. It takes us deep into the mountains and
tropical forests of Rwanda on a recent visit which gave us some
fascinating glimpses of this beautiful and little visited country
right in the heart of Africa.
The sickening horror of the 1994 genocide is impossible to forget but,
in a miracle of recovery, Rwanda today presents an entirely
different face to the visitor. The “land of a thousand hills” is once
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again a land of smiling faces and welcoming people - but, for all its
beauty, a densely populated land with few natural resources.
Environmentally friendly tourism is seen as the key to its economic
future and everyone we met was desperately anxious that we should
enjoy our visit. And there was a great deal to enjoy.
Despite the hunger for land and the intensive cultivation of every
available piece, the government has been very far sighted in
preserving huge tracts of particular beauty as natural parks. In the
west, the shores and islands of the vast Lake Kivu, which divides
Rwanda from the Congo, make a stunningly beautiful destination for
visitors. In the far north, the forested slopes of the dramatic
Volcanoes National Park are home to the world’s only population of
mountain gorillas. |
Lake Kivu |
|
Baboon and baby |
In complete contrast, the Akagera
park on the eastern border with Tanzania includes great lakes teeming with
hippopotamus and crocodiles and fringed by huge papyrus swamps and a vast
swathe of rolling savannah dotted with acacias where in a single day we
saw countless antelope and gazelle, zebra and giraffe, buffalo and
elephants, in fact virtually all the great animals of the African plains.
But one of the high spots in our exploration of this delightful country
was a walk through yet another park - the high mountain forests of Nyungwe
close to the border with Burundi and the Congo. Extending over more than a
thousand square kilometres, the park is the largest single area of
mountain forest in Africa.
Its central spine is the watershed between the
Nile and Congo rivers, the western slopes |
| feeding
the Congo, and ultimately flowing into the Atlantic, while the rivers
and streams on the eastern slope flow into the Nile and the
Mediterranean.
Its densely forested mountains soar nearly 10,000 feet above sea level but
the lower slopes also include large areas of swamp and bamboo forest. This
lush tropical landscape is home to 240 different types of tree, 140
different orchid species and nearly 300 different birds, many of them
endemic to central Africa.
It also harbours many interesting animals
including leopard, cerval, bush hog, duiker and 11 different species of
monkey. |
Akagera
elephant |
While enthusiastically welcoming visitors, the park authorities exercise
strict control over access to protect this almost unique habitat. All
visitors must pay a US$25 daily entrance fee and are expected to employ a
park guide when exploring any of the well marked and maintained walking
trails.
We meet up with our guide, a big friendly forest ranger called Verdaste,
at the basic but clean and comfortable lodge where we had spent the night
and set off on a 10km walk to what we’re told is a spectacular waterfall
deep in the forest.
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Dropwing dragonfly |
Even before we reach
the forest edge there’s plenty to see and enjoy. In fact C doubts if
we’ll ever reach the falls, as I constantly stop to capture a view
across the rolling tea plantations to the distant blue-green mountains
or to photograph one of the countless colourful butterflies and
dragonflies. The birds are rather more elusive - we hear them
everywhere but can rarely spot anything more than a glimpse of
iridescent colour as they flash between the trees. Verdaste, though,
is a constant source of fascinating information, unfailingly
identifying each birdcall. |
Tea plantations and
forest |
After about half an hour’s walk we reach the forest edge and begin a steep
descent, slithering and sliding down a steep muddy footpath into a deep,
luxuriantly forested valley and a different world. In many tropical
forests, the dense canopy allows almost no sunshine to penetrate to the
forest floor and few interesting plants and flowers can survive in the dim
light.
Here, however, although the massive trunks of the tallest trees
spread their branches nearly 150 feet high, with a second tier of smaller
trees 40 to 50 feet high clustered beneath them, the slopes are so steep
that the canopy is often broken and the forest floor is a patchwork of
broken sunlight and dappled shade in which a host of ferns, grasses and
flowering shrubs can flourish.
We’re truly in a tropical wonderland, every few paces a new flower or
butterfly species appears or a new birdsong echoes through the forest. At
each twist and turn of the path Verdaste points out a new plant or tree,
identifying it by both its African and scientific name and explaining how
its fruit, bark or roots can be used for food or medicine, or avoided as a
poison. On several occasions his sharp eye picks out a group of monkeys
high in the canopy; mongabey and blue monkeys, vervet monkeys, and finally
a wonderfully clear sighting of the timid and entrancingly beautiful black
and white colobus. |
Impala doe |
|
Sea eagle |
After a couple of kilometres, we crossed a rushing mountain stream
tumbling down the valley to join the mighty waters of the Congo and then
begin to climb steadily back up the far slope.
The change of aspect brings
still more new butterflies and plants; lichens and ferns, bamboos and
vines and a wonderful variety of small flowers like begonias and
impatiens.
The impatiens, in particular, are a
source of constant wonder, with no less than 11 different species to be
found in Nyungwe.
Other plants with familiar names which I normally
associate with summer bedding schemes in England develop astonishingly in
these lush conditions. One species of Lobelia thrusts a spear of flower 10
or 15 feet into the air above a collar of huge, fleshy leaves.
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| Soon, we can hear the
thunder of water ahead, and Verdaste asks whether we want to take the
easy route, circling round the top of the gorge to a viewpoint
overlooking the falls, or the more demanding climb down into the gorge
to the very foot of the plunging torrent.
Somewhat
apprehensively, as we’re now nearly 8000 feet up and breathing hard,
we choose the descent - a 300 foot scramble down a near vertical
slope. In places, wooden steps have been cut into the mountainside,
but they quickly rot in this hot humid atmosphere, and we grab at
rocks and branches to steady ourselves where they give way.
At the bottom we emerge
into an open bowl where the river curves around a huge outcrop of rock
below the waterfall.
Climbing onto the rock
we reach a viewpoint which fully rewards our choice of route; ahead a
tumbling mass of water plunges 300 feet down a vertical green wall of
vines, ferns and flowering shrubs, beneath us and behind us the river
rushes on down a steep rock strewn valley carved through the forest.
It’s a magical scene
recalling the engraved illustrations in the old Edwardian and
Victorian books of tropical adventurers which I read in my childhood. |
The waterfall |
|
Child musician
with home-made fiddle |
Eventually, we tear ourselves away and retrace our steps. At the forest
edge we meet the first person we’ve seen on our walk - a small boy, all
alone on a three mile trek through the tea plantations to afternoon
school.
For all its poverty, Rwanda has free primary education for
everyone and one of our most enduring memories will be the floods of
neatly blue and white uniformed children we saw everywhere we went,
running and skipping their way to school.
The dark memories of 1994 are never far away, but for us these children
symbolised the universal determination to put past divisions aside and
build a better future. |
| But Rwanda still had more to show us, and next month I’ll tell of the
once-in-a-lifetime climb 8000 feet up on the slopes of the volcanic
Verunga mountains to see one of the world’s only remaining groups of
mountain gorillas.
Don't miss next month's Soltalk
when Tony Allen
walks with gorillas. |
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Previous walks
by Tony Allen
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September 2006 |
October 2006 |
November 2006 |
December 2006 |
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January 2007 |
February 2007 |
March 2007 |
April 2007 |
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May 2007 |
June 2007 |
July 2007 |
August 2007 |
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September 2007 |
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