Akagera
"I see something!"
Dana is standing on the back seat of the car, torso poking up through the sun roof of the rented RAV-4.
We crossed into Akagera National Park just seconds ago. The gate is still visible behind us. And sure enough, by the side of the road, there's a buffalo. A cape buffalo, we later identify on the park guide. We stop again in another fifty feet: baboons! They amble across the grass, emerging from one bush and disappearing behind another.
Akagera is an enormous piece of protected land, Rwanda's only savannah safari park. They have zebras, giraffes, elephants, crocodiles– baboons are nearly passé soon, there are so many. They've even reintroduced lions recently, though we haven't seen them.
There is a mandatory safety briefing at the welcome center: you're allowed to drive around in a car without a guide, but there's a $70 fee if you get your car stuck and they have to come rescue you. You may camp in the designated campgrounds, and you're advised to pick one of the two with electric fences around them to keep the big game and monkeys out. Under no circumstances may you leave your car.
I only stepped out of the car one time, just for a second. I had a good reason: I needed to check the number on a road sign that had been overgrown, and we were still coming to terms with the map.
We had two maps of the park, which disagreed with each other about the existence of major roads. So when we didn’t find the campsite, we ended up taking an accidental two-hour loop into the park before we figured out how to match signpost numbers with marked points.
The missed route didn’t matter: driving around was the main objective of the safari park.
The road was hot and bumpy. I soon joined Dana standing half out of the sun roof for the view and the breeze. Dragonflies skimmed the hood of the car, which whirred periodically in the heat. We braced ourselves against the roof of the car, burning our hands in order to hold our bodies off the sharp edges of the sun roof while the car jostled through constant potholes.
"Stop stop stop!" Dana and I are scanning left and right: grass, trees, termite mounds. But what's that?
A giraffe on a hilltop overlooking a huge valley. A herd of zebras by the road junction. Baboons, again. We're watching an empty landscape, grass and trees, and then suddenly we're not. Silent animals are just standing there, looking mildly back. It's unexpected, surreal: shouldn't we need a guide to see all this? What are all these zoo animals doing just standing there?
We re-navigated the route to the campsite, this time without mishap. We found it completely unpeopled, all to ourselves. It was stocked with a large stack of firewood, and well situated with views out over Rwanda's second largest lake.
With our tents set up, we drove back downhill: we'd signed up for a boat ride at sunset.
We left extra time, which was good, since we found impalas, monkeys, whole families of baboons grooming each other and blocking the road.
After a brief accidental sojourn down a road chained off at one end, we found the way to the boat dock. A man let us through the gate to the lakeside, where tall crested cranes stalked, yellow pom pom sprays bobbing on their heads.
I was stalking one of the cranes, hoping for a closer photo, so I missed seeing the hippo surface by the dock, but I heard the loud snort. It was still there, eyes and ears above the water, when I reached the boat.
We were joined in the boat by two more park visitors. It was almost a relief to see other people, as we'd seen almost no one since our entrance to the park.
As we cast off, one of the other passengers identified a nearby island as a floating raft of papyrus plants.
"Yes," the boat captain confirmed, "It arrived this afternoon."
We skim across the water in the flat-bottomed boat. There is an island full of birds: fish-eagles like bald eagles with white chests, long-necked swimming snakebirds, solemn black cormorants with wings outstretched to dry.
Flashes of gold in huge stands of pampas grass reveal themselves to be yellow weaver. The reeds bounce out toward the water as the birds land to weave green grass into the hanging nests.
The sun begins to dip behind the hills, lighting the edges of clouds. We watch a family of hippos bathe, a crocodile run from stillness on the shore to suddenly invisible underwater. Lines of white birds skim the water surface.
When we get back to the shore, the dock is blocked. The island of papyrus has floated right into it, cutting off access completely.
The boat captain makes a quick call, reorients the boat. A man onshore improvises a new landing place from an old tire near a flock of crested cranes.
We return to the car in dusky pink light, hoping to get back to the campsite before full dark.
To be continued...
Previous: Huye | Next: Akagera Night
