Life Lessons for Lexie: Africa Edition: Amy & Akagera

Amy is a good friend from my days in Washington, D.C. While older, we both started our nursing careers at the same time at George Washington University Hospital, Amy in the Emergency Department and me in the ICU. The friendships I formed at GW have lead me on trips to the Grand Canyon and Hawaii, but this time, someone was coming to me! I was excited and happy for a distraction from loosing Steph.
Amy ended up landing 24 hours after she was originally suppose to, but that was ok, it all worked out. She had wanted to see Istanbul and with her flight delayed she ended up getting to spend 24 hours there. I picked her up at 2 am (there are several weird flight times in and out of Rwanda) and was so excited to see her come around the corner and walk down the hallway to me. I was so excited she thought I was drunk. But she has no idea how awesome it was to see someone from home in Rwanda.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 3 am and we were both pretty tired. We crashed and slept in Sunday morning. The hotel included breakfast so we ate breakfast in the little garden where Steph was able to join us. We ran a few errands, met Julie & Vanessa and moved stuff from one car to another. Before I knew it we had dropped Steph back at the hotel gave her big hugs goodbye and Julie, Amy and I were headed into the unknown territory of Eastern Rwanda... our final destination... Akagera National Park.
The Eastern Province of Rwanda is very different from the Southern (where I live). Julie and I kept repeating this so much that Amy must have thought we were crazy. The hills look different, the soil isn't as deep a red, the grasses are taller, the trees are different, just everything is different. But not in a bad way, it's still absolutely breathtaking. Amy probably wasn't enjoy the views on our 3 hour drive east quite as much as Julie and I were as she was a little nervous about our driving. As Julie likes to say, "Driving here is like a competitive sport." She's right. It's pretty crazy. And every time I went to pass a slow moving truck you would hear little gasps from her. She got much better as her week long visit progressed.
We finally reached the edge of the park after some bumpy dirt roads it wasn't much further of a drive to the tented lodge where we were staying. As we pulled to the entrance we stopped to allow the gate man not open the gate, but rather remove the electric wire that ran across the driveway. This was to keep the elephants out of the lodge grounds. We picked to stay at the nicer tented lodge mainly because it was my choice and I wanted to see water. There are 9 lakes within the borders of Akagera and each and everyone of them was beautiful to see. We quickly settled into our tents, Amy declared it was cold as the sun started to set (it was probably 65 degrees) and we made ourselves comfortable on the deck as we enjoyed a zesty adult beverage before dinner.

As we were waiting (for what turned out to be a very fabulous meal) a hippo was spotted swimming nearby. As we enjoyed our meal around a nice big campfire with the rest of the guests the hippo came out of the water and started to eat the grass.

Campfire for dinner

I should probably mention here that the deck and walkways from tent to tent (as well as the tents) were all raised so to allow some wild animals onto the property. It was very cool to see the hippo and the men working at the lodge grabbed a spotlight so that we could see not only the hippo but also some crocodiles that were floating about. It was very cool. After a glass of wine and one awesome meal, we all tucked into our tents.

Hello tent!

Amy was ready to crash almost as soon as we arrived.

The beds were so comfortable and Amy was so jet lagged that she was out in about 3 seconds. I fell asleep in about ten. But after almost two hours there was a noise outside of our tent. My eyes snapped open as I awoke with a start. "Amy!" "Hmm?" "Amy!" "Yeah?" "Amy, there's a hippo outside our tent!" I grabbed my phone and flipped on the flashlight as I crawled out of the tent flap. Sure enough there, about 10 meters from our platform was none other than a hippo basically mowing the grass in front of our tent. It was amazing and the first time I'd seen a hippo in the wild. After about fifteen minutes or so we climbed back in bed incredibly excited for our planned game drive in the morning.

Hippo right off our platform night #1!

President's Day Monday morning came with a beautiful sunrise over the lake, a lovely cup of tea, and more excitement.

The park driver and our local guide were to pick us up at 7:30 to start our all day drive. When the car pulled up to the lodge it was awesome. It was a huge old Land Cruiser with the top open. It was a true safari vehicle with a packed lunch and binoculars ready for us. Off we went with our driver Emmanuel and our guide Venuste. Venuste was incredibly knowledgable and I swear if you ever need to learn how to drive, Emmanuel is your man.

Enjoying the safari vehicle

They took us everywhere in the entire park. It wasn't long before we saw lots of elephant dung and we were on the hunt for the elephants! Sadly, we only saw baboons. Which were quite cool, but not the same as elephants. We took the mountain road up the ridge where we saw many impalas, oribi, warthogs, zebras, waterbucks, and even giraffes. We paused at the top of the mountain where Venuste told us they suspect that the lions that Rwanda is purchasing from Kenya will enjoy the views. From the top you could see for miles. We saw half of the lakes we had already driven by and the beautiful different greens of grass and trees. It was absolutely breathtaking. I felt as though I was standing in a scene of Out of Africa.

Pano of the plains

As we continued our drive we happened across a herd of zebras that we enjoyed watching for a little bit before continuing down the ridge and into the valley. Half of the time you could find me standing and hanging on with my head popped up above the roof enjoying everything. I wish I could have bottled the smell in the air and brought it home. It was so enticing that I can't even describe it.

Herd of zebras contemplating crossing the road

We came to the big plain where we found many water buffalo and others drinking. I was fascinated by the warthogs. They are so ugly and yet so cute at the same time. They stick their tails straight up in the air and trot right along. They are amazingly fast too. I hadn't realized. We moved on to the smaller plain and river where we had lunch. The smaller plain had a bunch of giraffes, which were really amazing to see. And in the river right in front of us where we ate lunch had more hippos. It was a long drive back to the lodge and for sitting around the majority of the day, I was pretty exhausted. Venuste was just asking us how we enjoyed the day as we drove by a ton of baboons and monkeys playing in the road and the trees alongside of it. We had just finished saying that we were disappointed in not seeing an elephant when it happened. There, right where the boats put in for a lake ride was an elephant. It was five o'clock and it was amazing. He was a fairly large male just scuffing his feet along the ground with an egret hanging out. It was so amazing.

Me, Amy, and Julie so excited to see the elephant!

The elephants in Rwanda are actually known for being aggressive. We are told that this is because when Akagera first came to be there was no way to transport adult elephants across the country. Therefore, roughly 300 adult elephants were slaughtered and the babies were transported by truck and helicopter to the newly established park. Venuste attributed their aggressiveness to not having parents to show them the ways. It was a sad and sweet story. Anyway, it was awesome to see--even if just one--elephant in the wild. We got back to the tented lodge and ate yet another fabulous meal. I stayed up a little longer enjoying a glass of wine under the stars before heading to bed.
We slept in Tuesday and enjoyed some tea before making the long all the way back to Butare. It was a great drive... despite getting pulled over 4 times (no I was not speeding and no I did not get a ticket, but did have to prove there was a fire extinguisher in the car). But Amy wasn't on the brink of a heart attack for the most part, which was good. The drive really showed her the differences that Julie and I had been going on and on about too. It was a fabulous first weekend of her visit.

Lessons Learned:
1) It's easy to forget that while you may have adjusted to some "crazier" aspects of your current life, others might be taken by surprise.
2) It's always good to have a bit of home visit.
3) Zoos might be easier, but it's nothing compared to seeing animals in the wild.