Visiting Virunga National Park is the slogan on every tourist’s mind due to the amazing features and wildlife.
All these attract millions of trippers who come in to have an adventure in this wonderful protected area.
It is found in the Democratic Republic of Congo an adjacent country to Uganda in the west and Rwanda in the south.
This park can be accessed either through Uganda, Rwanda and DR. Congo its self through the international airports within.
For an enjoyable adventure, we had to partner with Nature Adventure, we were provided with all the relevant information regarding this country and from this, we decided to have a visit to the park to see these features on our owns since we were tired of reading stories of other travelers.
We went for Congo gorilla trek & Nyiragongo tours, chimp trekking and Mountain Nyiragongo climbing. This took us five days to finish up the process.
We decided to use Kigali international airport as our safest route to DR Congo.
On first day we had a city tour in Kigali since we had reached in the morning. Had some lunch and later on we started the journey to DR.Congo crossing via Goma border to Mikeno Lodge inside Virunga National Park.
We were welcomed with happiness, in the evening we stayed at the compound where fire was lit for us as we were taking our beers from the bar.
The second day, we went for our first activity, this was gorilla trekking and this time we traveled to Kibati patrol post where this activity starts.
We met our guides who were well armed with guns for security reasons, we were briefed and we followed the trails at 8am, this was a hard task since we were not certain of the place where the gorillas had spent their nights. It took us six hours to discover these largest apes.
To see them around a thick shrub, we got scared but this was too childish!!!!!, we had to turn brave since we had paid to enjoy.
We thought that they were to attack us but they were too gentle, the giant silver back was busy observing what was taking place as we took photos and as well as being entertained by the baby gorillas that were playing around their mothers backs.
In the evening we went back to the lodge for a trans-night, but we were surprised with the fumes that were flowing in the sky from the Nyiragongo Mountain as it was turning the yellowish.
In fact we had a sleepless night as everybody was waiting for the climbing day, unfortunately the itinerary was sighting the next activity to be chimp trekking, we followed this and therefore on our third day we went to Tango forest where we tracked these shouting apes second to the gorillas.
These a close to the human being where by 98% of their genes relate to those of a human being.
Their bodies are covered with a long black hair, but their faces, ears, hands and feet are bare, this was our first time to see them and it was so wonderful.
They have hands with opposable thumbs that allow them to easily pick up and manipulate objects whereby they are also considered to be somehow destructive and playful most especially the young ones that were jumping over the trees as they were perfecting their walking tactic.
These are considered to be more intelligent and are one of the few species known to use tools.
These also joked around us as they were walking on all fours and after a time walk upright for short distance along the trails.
This was enough for us to appreciate Congo as we didn’t do a wrong suggestion to visit this country with nature adventure.
We went back to the lodge for refreshments as we prepared for the awaited day of climbing mountain Nyiragongo.
This was our fourth day in DR.Congo, we were given all the gadgets we were to use while climbing this Africa’s active volcano, this was great, we got three porters who carried our items to the top of the mountain, this was a laughing stage since most of the colleagues who used to have sleepless night while dreaming about how they could be at the peak of this mountain were falling through the paths around the slopes.
This was too hectic as we took uncountable bottles of water, we had some stop over’s around as we took some snacks.
Some points gave us a stunning view of Lake Kivu and other volcanic cones around the park with distributed craters on top.
This took us 8hours to reach the summit of this mountain, in the evening put all our luggage into the tents on top of the peak and we went to the crater, we were not allowed to stay near the vent but we were a step away foe emergency reasons.
It was too cold on the top but this areas had much heat as down in the vent magma was boiling in the vent with a both yellowish and reddish gases and fumes that were changing the sky with colours, this was worse as it was getting to night as we never lit anything except the light from the volcanic activities.
Our cooks were ready preparing food but what amused us was the way we were going to the lavatories as we used the ropes to and fro.
It was a nice experience up there, but on the fifth day we had to descend the mountain after our break first, the paths were too slippery, we reached at the station at around 9am in the morning.
On that very day we signed out of the park after clearing all what we had utilized, we went back to Rwanda for our departure at midnight, we reached the airport 2hours before our scheduled departure time. For real this was amazing with Nature adventure Africa safaris Limited.
