Akagera National Park - December 20, 2012

The Soucy's planned a trip to Akagera National Park for the CBM Global & National Field Staff and the Development Team that we work with.  We rented 2 buses and I think the total was 33 people!

We got up at 4, and were supposed to meet at the AEBR office after 5 to be able to leave at 5:30.  We arrived at quarter after and Pastor Sibomana and family arrived at 5:20....then things slowed down.  The Soucy's squeaked in at 5:29. :-)  We did manage to leave the office by 5:50, although we had to make a couple of pick-ups along the way.

I think we arrived at the park between 8:30 and 9:00--after a lot of driving!  Our bus had the Bustin's, Pastor Sibomana & his family (5 kids), Helene and her husband, and Berthe and her 2 kids.  The first 1 1/2 hours was on paved road, but after that is was on bumpy, mud roads.  Apparently the other bus did ok, but we had a lot of throwing up in ours!!  We had brought along 14 small paper bags and gave 4 to Kathleen for the other bus.  When we first brought up that Dad had paper bags if anyone started to feel sick, they kind of laughed at us/teased us/scoffed at us.

We used every single one of them.

Needless to say, Dad got REALLY good at his quick draw!  It's difficult with kids, because they don't give you any warning, but even they improved some!  Pastor Sibomana's wife was sick at least 8 times :-(  We now know that with that group, you can never have too many bags along!

At the very beginning of the drive at the park, we saw some baboons and warthogs, but after that it took about 3 hours to see more animals.  We stopped at 1 and had a picnic lunch.  Shortly after starting up again, we came to the savanna-type landscape and started to see lots of animals!  There were tons of impala and other types of antelope/deer.  By the end, we saw impala, cattle, warthogs, baboons, zebras, vervet monkeys, hippos, giraffes, maribou storks, buffalo, and helmeted guinea fowl.

Thankfully, seeing the animals seemed to distract the kids from feeling nauseous and we didn't have any more vomiting episodes, except for Pastor Sibomana's wife.  I had made up a check-list of some of the animals we might see and the kids had a fun time keeping track of the ones we saw.

We arrived back around 7 and were very dusty & dirty!  I even had some twigs in my hair!  But it was a really fun day--both seeing the animals and getting to know the team better & meet their families.

Now that you have the summary of our day, here's some pictures!  I've mostly divided them up into different animal sections.

Here's a couple of scenery pictures.  We drove through quite a variety of types of terrain.

Savannah:

Akagera National Park is located on Rwanda's border with
Tanzania.  The hills in the background of this picture are in
Tanzania.

We saw several "cactus trees"... the trunk looked like a tree, but
the branches were cactus-like.

On the bus:

Getting closer to the park!

13 km may not seem like that much in Canadian terms, but on
these roads (with multiple vomiting adventures along the way)
it's quite a significant distance!!

The entrance gate!

And now for the animals!  We'll start with the most common--impala!

 

And some other types of antelope.

 



 

Wouldn't want to be in front of this charge!

Their horns are a m a z i n g!!!

 

Near one of the lakes, we saw some maribou storks.

 

 

Warthogs!

 

 

We saw quite a few baboons--both on the road at the very beginning and in the woods some too.

 

The creatures weren't just outside the bus, we had a visitor inside too!

 

Some more horns, this time on cattle!

Picnic lunch!

Following a herd of buffalo across the lake.

 

Next up, the hippos!

 

 

 

These are the helmeted guinea fowl that we saw several times.

My highlight of the trip was seeing vervet monkeys.  They are so cute!

By mid-afternoon, little Bonita (Pastor Sibomana's youngest daughter) was wiped out!

When we reached the savanna, we started to see some classic African safari-type animals!

The zebras!

 

Why'd the zebras cross the road??  :-)

Up next:  the giraffes!

 

 

Further along this plain, we came across some buffalo.

 



 

At both the entrance & exit, there were these yellow weaver birds in some of the trees, building lots of nests.  Kathleen told us that they build tons of nests & then only lay the eggs in one of them to confuse predators.  They looked pretty cool & sang lots too!

 

Also at the exit, were some skulls...perfect for boys to pose by!

 

 

The perfect ending to my day was that for the last 45 minutes of our drive, Bonita decided to come sit with me!  She was sitting on her Dad's lap 2 rows ahead of me, and we started playing peek-a-boo...I guess that won her over! :-)