Lake Kivu


Day 49 – 27th July 2019

Rubavu (previously Gisenyi)

Immediately after our Gorilla Trek we left for Rubavu where we had planned to camp at Discover Rwanda Gisenyi Beach Hostel.  We inspected the campsite and ablutions upon arrival, and decided that we were definitely not staying there.  As it was a weekend, they had no rooms available and, over a beer, we decided that we would treat ourselves again to a hotel room.  Quite frankly, we were all exhausted - not only physically from the hike, but also mentally from the excitement leading up to and including the time spent with the gorillas.

We chose the Peace View Hotel which apparently had the best view over Lake Kivu.  We absolutely collapsed laughing when we saw the number of steps we had to climb to the rooms and the restaurant on the very top floor!  A walk in the park though, compared to this morning’s trek 😊.

What a great decision and good choice of hotel.  The rooms were excellent and the restaurant very good.  During dinner a Pennant-winged Nightjar flew by!  We had seen one in the Serengeti, but perched on the floor.  Unfortunately we did not have our cameras at dinner – we would have loved to have caught it in flight!
Pennant-winged nightjar in the Serengeti
Day 51 & 52 - 28th & 29th July 2019

After breakfast we drove south along Lake Kivu to Kirongo (previously Kibuye) to spend two nights camping at Bethany B Hotel, right on the lake shore.  We visited the Environmental Museum which was relatively interesting, and booked a boat to three of the five islands around Kirongo for the next day.  We met Magnus, an investigative journalist from Kigali, who was doing a road trip with his crew.  He requested an interview for his tabloid about our experience thus far in Rwanda.  A vibrant personality as only one would expect to meet in the media industry.

Our boat captain, Suliman (telephone +250 782 137007), was a superb guide and took us to Napoleon Island, Peace Island and Girl Island.  On Napoleon we walked to find the bats, the men swam at Peace Island and we merely floated around Girl Island – apparently many years ago, young women who fell pregnant before they were married were sent to this Island where they were picked up by Congolese people and taken to the DRC as slaves.


Over dinner the discussions centred purely on Rwanda, and particularly Lake Kivu, one of the most clean and beautiful lakes we have encountered.  While on the boat we were saying that we could be anywhere in the world other than Africa – we never expected to find this beauty in Rwanda.





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