Bunyan Velo: Travels on Two Wheels, Issue No. 02

He said the only place was inside Nyungwe Forest and he offered to give me a ride. I looked over at his rusty, white pickup, overstuffed with cargo, and with four men leaning against it waiting for my response. “Why not?” I figured, as it was getting dark.

The landscape closed in as we entered the forest. Wide fields and terraced hills disappeared behind untouched jungle.

Soon after, we arrived at a parking lot and I pulled my bike down from the truck. A man approached excitedly, asking if I was going to camp. I told him I was and he said that he would put me next to some campers from Switzerland.

“Sure,” I said, somewhat uninterested, and followed him to the park headquarters.

As we walked, he informed me that it would be fifty dollars to camp for the night. This was a common misunderstanding, I thought. Many people here mix up the words “eighty” and “eighteen,” “fifty” and “fifteen” etc., so I asked him if he meant “fifteen dollars” and he quickly replied, “Yes, yes, fifteen.”

I dropped my things off on a small, square patch of grass, perhaps the only suitable camping spot I had seen in almost all of Rwanda, and turned to see two guys staring at me.

Even before they spoke, their two bicycles leaning against a tree in the background had caught my attention. By chance, these two Swiss cyclists were the only other people camping in Nyungwe that night. They had also started in Kigali and planned to ride to Uganda via the shores of Lake Kivu. They set off about a week ahead of me and had already spent a couple nights in Nyungwe, trekking through the rainforest and resting up a bit.

I chatted briefly with Jan and Dominick before I was prompted to pay my dues for the night. I made the short hike down to the front desk, but when I pulled my Rwandan Francs out of my wallet, I was told they were not enough.

Turns out they did want fifty dollars for one night of camping. I was a little dumbfounded and tried to negotiate, but got absolutely nowhere.

I contemplated loading up my bike, throwing on my lights, and making an attempt at wild camping, but my chances of finding a spot seemed bleak at best. The road snaked up and down several mountains with sheer drop offs on one side and jungle sprawling straight up the other. There were no flat places here. The only vehicles coming through were large trucks carrying cargo, several of which I had seen flipped, crashed, and abandoned along the way. Riding at night didn’t seem like a smart choice. I eventually caved and forked over my fifty bucks, which was far more than I had spent in the last four days combined. A bit soured, I hiked back up to camp, vowing to get out of Nyungwe first thing Bunyan Velo 72