I was therefore ambivalent about visiting it however Simon had never been there (I must stop letting Simon enable me), so I booked another trip for the day. My enthusiasm was piqued by the knowledge that 7 lions had been introduced into the park. Lions have been extinct since after the genocide. In order to have land for the refugees who returned, the government gave 2/3 of the park to farmers, who, when the lions started eating their livestock, poisoned the Lions. Nasty but there is a difference between trying to eek out a subsistence life and paying 10s of thousands of dollars to lure a lion out of a park so you can shoot it with a crossbow. The park is now surrounded by an electric fence.
Our driver Clement arrived at 0530 and we went down to meet him. We headed off thru the street of Kigali. This time of year it is still dark at that time. A few people were jogging and the soldiers were still on the streets. We swung thru Kigali and headed east. The sun was coming up. Everywhere you go in Rwanda you are never out of sight of another person and we saw tons of people. Most impressive were the people carrying green bananas to market on their bicycles. They would put one bunch on each side like a pannier and then would stack up bananas behind them as high as the height of the rider. I wish I had taken a photograph but I knew that it wouldn't turn out well. They would ride their bikes on the flat and would push their bikes up hill. We saw at least 50 such bikes and as well people carrying firewood or water on their bikes.
Along the way we passed banana plantations and fish farms.
About 2 hours in we turned on to a dirt road towards the park. The terrain and vegetation was starting to turn to savannah like although we still passed farms and banana plantations. There were a lot of cattle with long horns.
We entered the park through the south gate and proceeded to the entrance. Akagera is much better organized than 4 years ago. There is now a tented lodge and you are able to camp behind an electric fence. There was a reception area and you can even pay your park fees by VISA. At our driver's suggestion I bought a coffee. The lid was too big for the cup so I wore some of it but absorbed enough to make the drive over rough roads somewhat uncomfortable. During our previous visit we had entered through the north gate which you can no longer do so I was hoping for a new experience. We picked up a guide Bosco who joined us in the truck.
We headed north along a dirt road. The grass had been burned along the road which our guide told us would result in fresh green grass which would bring the game back towards the lodge. Eventually we were on a road running between the lake and a ridge which jutted up about a km away. At first we did not see many animals except some Impalas, baboons and a large lizard sunning on a rock..
At one point we ascended higher above the lake where we stopped on Bosco gave us binoculars where we could see elephants down below by the lake in distance.
We stopped at Hippo beach where appropriately we saw a number of hippos as well as some Nile Crocodiles. Later at another stop we were able to get quite close to the water where we saw a large hippo and some smaller hippos. Our guide told us that the larger hippo was mating. This means that his lover was under water. Hippos are able to submerge for up to 6 minutes which certainly limits their stamina or gives a new meaning to "coming up for air". We also saw two hippos on land.
As we got farther north we started to see more species of antelope, a lot a warthogs and just two giraffes off in the distance. We also finally saw some zebras although they were far away and not as numerous as during my last visit.
It was overall a great visit. We didn't see the lions but it is still a large park and the Lions are probably just settling in or lying somewhere gorged out because of the abundance of prey who have never known a lion in several generations. There are also leopards in the park. These are nocturnal and I didn't expect to see one.
We had a 3 hour drive back to Kigali, dropping Bosco off about half way where he would take a taxi back to the South Gate. The roads were very busy with people walking along the side of the road or just visiting. We saw bicycles carrying all matter of outrageous materials.
Clement dropped us off at the Serena Hotel where I had a shower, a beer and checked email and we walked home along the busy NR.
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