Finally Saw the Amazing Golden Monkeys in Rwanda S7 EP.36 | Pakistan to South Africa
He took it and ran away. Look at him eat. I was expecting this to happen. I'm not gonna do anything about it. The guards here will take care of it. Assalam Alekum Everyone and Welcome Back to the Channel from Ruhengeri, Rwanda.
We had a rather early start to our day. Woke up at 5 and it's 6.30 am now. All the luggage has been set up on the motorcycle. We are leaving shortly. About 15 km from here, is the Volcanoes National Park.
Gonna be a half an hour ride. They have a special kind of monkeys there, known as the Golden Monkeys. We'll be doing that hike today. This is a very touristy area. People come here for gorilla safari in Volcanoes National Park.
But we have already done that in Uganda. Still I decided to visit this park and share its landscape with you. And that will be our first national park in Rwanda. We'll get an idea about the tourist places here and the facilities there.
And how these people manage these parks. It's a very unique country and there are a lot of things that I want to share with you. Let's get going and I'll be sharing more with you as we ride. Bismillah... In the name of Allah...
*Prayer for the journey* May Allah make this a memorable and fun day for us. It's not a long ride straight away. Not until Volcanoes National Park at least.
But after that we'll have to see where we stay for the night. Depending on how our hike goes. Or if we get a slot for the hike at all.... That's because you need a permit for the hike. And we'll have to pay for that once we get there. I have already asked my tour guide and he told me that he is not available for the day.
But if I can manage to reach there early in the day, they might allow me. They are not very strict about the monkeys trek. However, they only allow a specific number of people for the gorilla safari. Anyways, we'll see what happens. You can see how many people are out here for a morning walk. I noticed this through out East Africa that they walk a lot.
Financial situation could be one reason. I mean one could save the fare money by walking to their destination. Many people walk their way to work in the morning.
The sidewalks are full of people. All the countries that I have visited so far in this tour... Kenya.... Tanzania... Uganda.... This one is different from all of them. They give a lot of importance to cleanliness.
It's like a spotless country. You can't see any sort of garbage by the roadsides. Very safe country with really friendly people. Prices are quite low if compared to the other countries I have visited here.
Will share these things in some more details with you in this vlog. I spent the whole day yesterday in exploring this city. Didn't make any video though.
Just to have some feel of this country. And I did get quite an impression. You can imagine how roads are mostly empty at this time of the day in our part of the world.
People would be still asleep. But here we can see a lot of hustle and bustle. Markets are open and the day has a rather early start.
People are early to bed and early to rise. The temperature right now is around 21 - 22 degrees. You may still see people in heavy jackets even in this temperature. Some may be walking around in a T-shirt, like me. These days the temperature can go up to 15-16 degrees during the night. These days I mean.
I can now see a volcano in the distance. But the visibility was much less in the morning due to haze. I hope you can see that in my GoPro.
There's a huge volcano behind these trees. You can see the rice crop here. I saw a lot of rice here as well as Uganda. These are all safari jeeps.
Morning. Inside? OK. I'm good. Thank you. And you? Emanuel? Nice to meet you, Emanuel.
Where can I park the motorcycle? Which activity? Golden Monkeys. Morning. How are you? Sorry? You are not allowed to go there without passing your bags here. You have many bags. Yeah, I have everything here including my coming, my food and my clothes. Yes. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I have to buy the permit of Golden Monkeys as well. O you want to buy the permit? Yes. I can connect you with the right person. Yes, please.
Did you talk to a guide? So we have got ourselves a permit. They have maintained a rather efficient setup here. You can see that the entrance of this park is really beautiful. We need to follow this vehicle. They have told me that it's going to be a 20 minute ride. And after that our hike will start.
The whole thing is booked for the day when I checked online. But here they added a slot for me and charged me 100 USD. You can either pay through a Visa or a Mastercad. They don't take cash here. I think that is done to keep track of every transaction.
I have seen that on many occasions. That you can only pay through a card in national parks. I can feel the weather changing here. It was much better in the morning.
But it's getting cloudy now. Seems like a bit crowded here. These could be the lodges. There were some wonderful looking lodges.
Some of them were rather luxurious. We need to take care of our cameras. Lets remove this one.
This is our group. It has 8-9 tourists and some porters. They are also giving sticks in case anyone needs them for walking. Every family... We have big families here. Like myself, I have 9 siblings.
We are 10 brothers and sisters. And in our village here, every family must have 3 houses. Everybody Whatever the situation is, you must have 3 houses.
If we take this guy for example; he's my neighbor. We always have a big house. See these narrow paths. This path is paved through the village for the use of tourists.
Our hike has begun. We are making our way through small villages and farms. This national park also has the gorilla safari.
And its permit costs 1500 USD. The one I had in Uganda cost 700 USD. The one for monkeys costs 100 USD. And if you just want a hike, it costs 75 USD. Everything costs money here.
We have been told that these monkeys live in a group of 60 - 70. So, we are gonna see a lot of monkeys. Just like gorillas, the monkeys also have many families.
So we'll be visiting one of these families for one hour. The gorilla safari was also for one hour. These are very rare monkeys. You'll find them only here in the Viruna mountain range. Which extends across Rwanda, Uganda and Congo.
It's not a very long hike; just 15-20 minutes to get there. They are taking short breaks at different points to give us interesting information. For instance the people in this village are quite well off. That's because 10% of the tourism revenue is spent on these communities here.
That's the reason people here have schools, clean drinking water and jobs. Lets keep walking and see what else they have to tell us. Look at that It's a chameleon. What's the name of this one? You are gonna give a name? We didn't name him. Doesn't have any name? Lets name him Marka.
And look, it's turning white. Yeah So it's changing color? Yeah I think here we have potatoes and beans. Look at the color.
I haven't seen beans in this color before. I thought it would be a kindey bean. But those are red in color. Or may be this color means these are yet to get ripe. We have finally spotted some monkeys after a hike of about 40 minutes.
Some are sitting here and some are over there. I think this is the family that we are here to visit. I'm gonna try and get some nice footage for you.
Normally monkeys eat the leaves of the tree. However, this one here, came here to steal a potato and ran away. They are still waiting for the opportunity to steal some more potatoes. They have pure brown eyes.
Golden fur... Brown Eyes... The cheeks have golden and black colored fur as well. Really unique monkeys... Haven't seen them before. And the mouth and chin are white.
He stole them and ran away. Look at him eat. I was expecting this to happen. I'm not gonna do anything about it.
The guards here will do something about it. He just ran away. He made sure to clean the dirt off before eating it.
I hope you must have enjoyed our Golden Monkeys experience. We had one hour with the monkeys. As I told you during the gorilla safari that trekkers visit the area to locate the gorillas before the tourists. They do the same thing to locate these golden monkeys as well. And then they stay in that area. And after that tourists can visit.
It took us 40 minutes to come here because we stopped many times along the way for info. However, it's hardly going to be 20 minutes before we get back there. My motorcycle has been parked there. Not just this monkey experience... But also the hike through the jungle and walking through farms... Even the landscape is quite unique.
These things matter as well. If you visit some place and get to see something unique. I mean you are in a new country and you explore a completely new landscape and culture. Thank you very much. Back in Ruhengeri.
Because the cafe where I ate and had coffee during the last couple of days, was awesome. Their food is really amazing. Thought it'd be a good idea to have breakfast before we go ahead. We haven't eaten anything today. And it's almost quarter past 11. Let see...
Lets sit outside today. The weather is great. Look at how beautiful this fruit platter looks. We have mango, apple and pineapple. I don't know the name of this one. But I have eaten this before.
This is passion fruit. Some chunks of watermelon. And we have a banana as well. We have also ordered pancakes and they will be served shortly. And our coffee tastes as great as it looks. Those who claim that the coffee in Rwanda is amazing are absolutely right.
Every time I had coffee here, I was all praise. I noticed something when I got a SIM card yesterday. They Airtel and MTN here.
But I preferred MTN because my experience with Airtel in Uganda was not too good. So I opted for MTN. Paid just 7 or 8 dollars for 35 GB internet. Whereas I paid almost 30 USD for the same data package in Kenya and Tanzania.
Quite cheap. All the hotels and restaurants here have a really good wifi. So, speaking in terms of comfort and technology...
Like I traveled very comfortably in Kenya. Had amazing food at good price. It's the same here. Safety situation is also very good. You can comfortably go anywhere.
While we sip on our cappuccino and eat fruit, our pancakes will also arrive. The food was great. Paid almost 7 USD for that. I think that's fair price.
People really follow traffic rules here. You can see police almost everywhere. I have spotted a petrol station so lets get the motorcycle refueled. Super? How much? Full The fuel rates here are 1.3 USD per liter.
Almost similar prices as in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Could be a difference of 5 to 10 cents though. So far I have liked everything about Rwanda. Except for what happened with us just a little while ago. I went to an ATM to get some money. Wanted to withdraw 100 thousand Rwandan Francs.
The machine got that money out for me. But it directed me to take my card out, first. Then I took the receipt. But as soon as I tried to take the money, it went back inside.
I reported the incident to the bank. They said that I should have taken the money first. And I was like, the money doesn't go back to the machine like this.
Anyways, that was around 75 euros. Let see if we get that amount back or not. The bank suggested me to contact my own bank and they will refund the money. But I'm not sure about that.
We have to ride for another 70 km today. There is a lake here called Lake Kivu. And there's a small town nearby, by the name of Gisenyi. The lake is located at the border of DR Congo. The area is really beautiful.
I saw the pictures and decided to go and explore that area. Since Rwanda is not a very large country. That's why we'll leave after exploring some areas for a few more days.
You can see the tea fields on both our sides. Rwanda is quite well known for its tea and coffee. Dark clouds have gathered in the sky.
It's getting more windy. And I feel a little cold now. I think there will only be a few days in Africa that I felt cold.
Got my jacket zipped. Otherwise the temperature stayed around 22 - 25 degrees. Did touch almost 35 degrees on some occasions. It's not a very long ride.
But that thunderstorm in the distance... We'll have to consider that. We need to stop somewere. But I think we need to go this way.
And that's just a patch. That's how the weather here is. It was perfect back there. It's raining on that mountain.
And it will get better if we keep going. We have finally entered Gisenyi. And it has rained here quite heavily before our arrival.
The roads are still wet. But this city is rather beautiful and clean. So full of nature. Doesn't seem like we are in Africa. Such amazing roads and the degree of cleanliness.... Amazing We need to turn left from here.
On our way to the hotel we found online. Such beautiful houses. Look at how big that lake is. I have tried to find a nice hotel somewhere near this lake. Wow... Wonderful... Didn't expect to ride along such a beautiful lake today.
Feels like we are riding in Switzerland, Italy or Norway. Green mountains... And this beautiful lake. We can see quite a few lodges in this area. That's where we're headed... Inzu Lodge. Oh it's up there.
Oops Stones on the road. We'll make it. We have checked in to the lodge. Have placed my luggage in my tent or room. I'll just give you a tour and then you can decide yourself.
So this is the lodge where we'll be staying for the night. Before anything else, let me give you the view of the lake from here. What you see on both sides are the tents.
They are covered from the top. And almost every tent has its front facing the lake. The view of the lake from here is awesome. There's a lot of greenery here. A really nice and clean place.
This is a sitting place and right next to it is our tent. There are two chairs to sit on, right outside the tent. Let me show you from inside. There are 3 beds.
That's our luggage. I'm gonna sleep here. Mosquito nets are also available and we might need them.
Some space to keep your luggage. And that's a charging pod. So this is where we'll be spending our night today.
Not very luxurious... A simple place... But I think it's quite comfortable. To be at a place like this to enjoy nature with a lake view like this. Shower area and toilets are shared and are located back there. But they are really clean. So no problems there.
We paid here 32 USD. It's a magical sunset. Although it's cloudy. However, this amazing view of the lake and greenery... I didn't imagine this place to be so beautiful. Awesome It might start raining in some time.
We can see mangoes on the trees. Still not ripe. This place is among the most beautiful places in this tour. Such a beautiful evening despite the fact that it's cloudy with a light drizzle. That's why we can't enjoy this sunset.
Otherwise, we could have observed the beautiful sun setting behind the lake. What an amazing view that would have been. But despite that, I have really enjoyed my evening here. Because it's an exceedingly beautiful with a splendid view of the lake.
If you take a look from the top, you can have a full view of the lake. And it's so green. On top of that, listen to the sounds of birds. A totally jungle vibe here. The pleasure you find after visiting such places is amazing.
About to rain... It would be quite awesome to enjoy the rain here.
2024-02-15 03:48
