Crazy: Burundi, Rwanda & Uganda’s Gorillas in Three Days

The collapsing swimming platform at Edirisa on Lake Bunyonyi has been rebuilt from scratch, courtesy of Wheeling2help! This volunteer organisation brings groups of Greeks and Cypriots to several countries, eager to make positive community impact. After several contributions to Bufuka Primary School — a new kitchen with school meals tops the list — they added something truly life-saving this month: a wooden structure with a submerged floor that helps kids safely learn how to swim.

Yiannis Pepetsios, an insurance agent from Cyprus, came to Uganda with Wheeling and did good work at Bunyonyi … but wanted more! It is his life goal to visit every country on the planet (current total: 63), so he asked us if we could take him to both Rwanda and Burundi in 3 days. We are not usually eager to rush through landscapes and cultures, but we love what Wheeling is doing and always support their volunteers’ travel in all possible ways. So we made it happen, and it was beautiful and crazy!

Yiannis left Bunyonyi at 4am to first check on the mountain gorillas of Mgahinga National Park. He then crossed into Rwanda and made it to Huye at dusk.

Next morning we made the welcoming staff of the Ethnographic Museum report earlier than they are used to, to see a bit of Rwanda’s proud history and intricate crafts. Then we beat a long convoy of Chinese cement trucks (they have a factory in Congo) to the border of Burundi.

Our biggest challenge in the capital city was to find a motorboat for Yiannis’s rendezvous with hippos! We almost gave up but then located a fantastic little speedboat that took us straight to them (yes, they live in the city).

We departed the shores of Lake Tanganyika very early, and our rewards were mind-blowing views of Bujumbura.

Burundi is famous for extraordinary drummers; 30 of them performed for Yiannis. We gave a tip to each of them and that moved their leader to gift us a drum.

“Patrimonie mondial!” insisted the manager of the border post, saying we were not allowed to leave with it! He could not be convinced the specimen was from the drummers’ gift shop …

And what a way to end the tour — shoe shopping in Kigali, just before the night flight!

featured photo by Miha Logar; other photos by Arthur Musinguzi, Levi Ayabere and the author