Baboons and Giraffes and Habers. Oh my.

Due to my insightful planning (Footnote 1), our genocide experiences are nicely bookended by some fun, uplifting African adventures.  So almost immediately after returning from Murambi (roughly 5 hours of driving), we tearfully left our home at the Inside Afrika Boutique Hotel in another car headed east toward the Akagera National Park (roughly another 3 hours driving).  We tried to procure Eric's services, but alas, while we were dithering about our plans he booked a sure thing instead.  So he sent a colleague, Alois, instead, and even came over with Alois to ensure that introductions went smoothly.  We love Eric.

I was surprised to see Alois pull up in another Land Cruiser-- Eric had mentioned that for doing a game drive in Akagera, it might be better to use a Safari Jeep.  The only problems with the Safari Jeep, he said, were the heat and the swarming horseflies.  When he and Alois arrived, he explained that he thought Ellen might be happier with a car with horsefly-prevention-closing-windows and air conditioning.  Ellen's subsequent gaze at Eric burned with a love that I will likely never know.

So we were off.  Alois, it turns out, is an awesome (2) youngish mid-20s guy and we enjoyed riding with him. We asked him where we were staying (3) and he said there's only one lodge at the park, so you have to stay there.  This is never a good sign.  Oh well.  As we neared the park, it was getting dark.  Eric had wanted to make sure that we left Kigali around 4 to avoid driving in the dark, and now I understand why.  Driving in Rwanda, in general, is kind of like a game of real life MarioKart-- you drive as fast as you can, weaving in between the 1982 Daihatsu trucks spewing fumes and the goats on leashes, and try not to hit any women carrying 40 pounds of sugar cane on their heads.  This is scary enough in full daylight, but on the winding "dust roads" (as they are called here) at night, it's simply terrifying.  But Alois was a pro, and we arrived at the Akagera Game Lodge no problem.

It turns out that Ellen's fears and mine about the quality of the lodge were totally founded.  It was crap.  Tiny room, bathroom of questionable cleanliness, bed that was hard as a rock, etc; but they mitigated the first impression with a serious-looking document placed cleverly on the desk:

HOW TO BEHAVE AROUND BABOONS

Now they had our attention.  Ellen laughingly read every word, including the last paragraph, which was entitled 

REMAIN CALM

This section was mostly about what to do if a baboon tries to take food from you.  But it did offer one critical piece of advice:

IF YOU DO GET APPROACHED BY A BABOON WHILE CARRYING FOOD, IT IS BETTER TO LET THE BABOON HAVE THE FOOD IF IT TRIES TO TAKE IT FROM YOU, DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THE BABOON, THIS IS LIKELY TO CAUSE AGGRESSION.

Point taken.  Fighting a baboon is likely to induce baboon aggression.  Check.  While I am now an experienced gorilla tracker, and will willfully violate the 7-meter rule, I will refrain from baboon fighting for the duration of my stay at Akagera Game Lodge.  

 

I thought sunrises like this only happened in cartoons, but it's real.

One mediocre spaghetti dinner later, it was time for bed.  After the worst night of sleep (4) of my life, I beat my 5am wake up call by about 20 minutes, showered (5), got my stuff together, left the room so my wife could get her stuff together without me staring and asking her if there's anything I can do to help every ten seconds, and went to check out breakfast.  On the way, I discovered the real appeal of the Akagera Game Lodge-- its stunning sunrise view.  Worth every toss and turn.

With this sunrise as a backdrop, I asked the waiter if it would be alright if Ellen and I had breakfast on the balcony outside the restaurant.  Since no one in Rwanda has turned down a single request yet, I began to get settled on one of the outdoor tables.  "Ac-tooally," the waiter whisper-said, "it would be bettah if you et insyeed bee coss thee baboons will come tayeek dee food."  Okay then.

Ellen arrived and we sat down to a lovely breakfast of toast with Nutella and peanut butter and fresh fruit.  We chose a table with a view of the sunrise.  As I gently spread my Nutella and Ellen sipped her coffee, our  quiet breakfast was interrupted when a short man in a hotel polo and a jacket went sprinting by the window clutching a wooden club over his head like Elmer Fudd.  Apparently his job was to fight baboons, something I had been expressly warned against.  He almost got one, but the target quickly jumped on the roof and scampered across to a nearby powerline.  I was unimpressed by this baboon's "aggression"-- honestly I think I could've taken him. 

He was totally scared.

Alois arrived, and we were off again to see some wildlife.  We picked up a park ranger named Deyo, whose job it was to point at different paths in the park to direct us to the nearest zebras.  He was good-- we saw some zebras within about 10 minutes.  The drive was going well-- we saw impalas, topi (large antelopes), waterbucks, bushbucks, even warthogs.  I noticed after a while, though, that Ellen looked troubled.  She had to go to the bathroom.  Uh oh.  It was only about 8:30, and the drive was scheduled to go on for at least 5 more hours.  This will become an important theme later.

Eric was so right about the horseflies; they're really awful.  They swarm the car, fly into the car whenever possible, and generally do their best to homestead in my ears.  Approximately forty percent of the wildlife experience in Akagera National Park is cajoling horseflies out of the car by swatting at them until they land on the window then quickly unrolling the window enough to let one horsefly out and no horseflies in.  It's quite an art, and I must say I became pretty adept rather quickly.

It was right after the hippos that Ellen's bladder reached critical mass, and I finally asked her, "at what point does the discomfort in there (pointing at her bladder) outweigh the discomfort out there (indicating the possibility of her peeing outside)?"  "We're close," she said.  

Finally, it got to be too much.  Ellen grabbed the toilet paper we had brought from home (6).  I gave her a quick tutorial on the "Orangutan Hang" method (7) of peeing in the woods, and she jumped out of the car.  At that moment, Ellen overcame a significant life obstacle and peed outside for the first time.  As the poet once said about this great continent, "It's gonna take some time to do the things we never have..."

  

Ellen was thrilled to have this momentous occasion captured for posterity.

After that, the day went swimmingly, highlighted by our time with about 12 giraffes, including 2 babies.  We have a million pictures; here are a few:

Zebra attack!

Alois made it seem like this was normal.  I disagreed.

Ellen hearts giraffes.

Two happy couples.

After the game drive, we happily returned to Kigali and the Inside Afrika Boutique Hotel.  Dinner at Heaven (again) was followed by a good chat with some other American kids doing work on genocide.  

Tomorrow, we plan to visit some schools, do some shopping, and then head to the airport, so this will be our last post from Rwanda.  Ellen just said "I can't believe it, but I don't want to go back yet."  Agreed.  I'll add an epilogue from Nashville in a couple days, but in the meantime, thanks for following along-- it's added so much to our trip to know so many others were sharing it with us.  Until then...

Muramukeho. 

Notes:
(1) Blind luck.
(2) Everyone in Rwanda is awesome.
(3) We have put total blind faith in Eric, and just go, unquestioning, wherever he says.  I'm not kidding when I say that we had no idea where we were staying until we asked Alois. 
(4) Not much of what was done was "sleeping."  Mainly it was "not sleeping due to the enduring dull pain of mattress/stone."
(5) Used one of those handheld shower heads to spray water all over the bathroom, and sometimes my body.
(6) By home, I mean Nashville.  Yes, we brought our own toilet paper.
(7) Just grab a branch and lean back!