Hot Springs En Route to Kibuye

December 6^th, 2023

I thought I was going to stay another day in the Musanze area and do a hike up one of the volcanos or visit the Dian Fossey museum, but it was a rainy night and morning, and I had new friends to hang out with.  The South Africans were too much fun and they had planned to head to Kibuye, on the shore of Lake Kivu, which is where I was planning to visit the following day.  Sometimes when travelling with somewhat of a loose schedule, it can be more about the people than the places.  So, I decided to join the boys on their travels.  I wasn’t the only one, Julie from Germany, who had already been to Kibuye earlier in the week, opted to tag along as well.

 

Koster talked to Peace and asked her what private car options we had.  At first it sounded like we might be going in super luxury, in a safari vehicle, but it turned out to be unavailable.  We did get a pretty skookum car that fit all of us and our gear and it was the newest vehicle that I’ve been in since I arrived in Africa.  We were all loaded up in the car, except we were missing Koster…where did he go?  Five minutes later, we got our answer.  Everyone thought he was at the restaurant, but he walked in the gate of Red Rocks from across the street, with a box full of beer…this guy knows how he likes to travel!

 

Being the old guy in the group, I was granted shotgun, which I didn’t complain about.  It was a fun drive with some good banter and stories.  I was quiet most of the time but the first time I brought up some story or random fact that everyone seemed to enjoy.  I was told that every hour I had a quota to capture their imagination yet again.  Challenge accepted.

The crew in the car:

Some random landscape on the way:

We stopped in some small town for an ATM stop and Koster needed to get some credit on his phone.  We were definitely a bit of a spectacle for the locals.  I guess it’s not often that five mzungus roll up in a nice car in this village.  It didn’t help that Koster and Stefan were walking around in shorts with no shoes and even more so that 25 year-old Julie was wearing spandex shorts, a decision she openly regretted.  While the boys were trying to get money, local men and boys would just stop on the street and stare at Julie, who seemed to mostly be oblivious to it or just purposefully ignored it.

We saw a number of these signs.  I kinda wanted to stop and stand underneath the sign and have a photo taken!

Our first view of Lake Kivu:

Reaching the lake, Julie had planted a seed the day before that we should visit some hot springs.  She stated that the two coolest things that she had done in Rwanda so far, were visiting a tea factory (kind of odd) and dipping into these hot springs.  The stop wasn’t too far off of the main road we were on, and we thought that Peace had explained to the driver, whose English wasn’t great, that we wanted to stop there for an hour or so.  Turns out it was a bit of a surprise for him.  Koster wisely called Peace and had her talk to the driver about our request.  His response was “Hakuna Matata”.  Nice.

The last half kilometer, down a steep hill, was unpaved and bumpy.  We didn’t want to cause any damage to our nice taxi driver’s car, so we walked down the hill.  A number of locals were hanging out along the alleyway and down by the water of Lake Kivu.  It was a narrow stretch of land with the lake on the left and a small bay on the right.  Of course, we had a few guys come up to be our unrequested guides, which I found happens a lot in Africa.  They are generally helpful and friendly but you always wonder what their ulterior motive is.  Julie had been here just 4-5 days earlier so she led the charge towards the hot springs.

 

There was a little wooden kiosk with a sign displaying the prices for entrance to the hot springs.  Julie was flabbergasted that the going rate for foreigners was 5000 francs.  She had only paid 2000 within this past week.  The prices had just increased yesterday, as stated on the sign.  Julie wasn’t having any of this and a back and forth bargaining/disagreement went on with her and the woman in the kiosk.  Personally I didn’t really care.  I told Julie that we were only talking about a difference of 2 Euros…let’s just pay and go in.  Eventually Julie struck a bargain and it was 15,000 francs for the five of us.  In the end, two of us, myself included, opted not to go in the hot springs so she ended up paying 5000 per person anyways. 

Reaching the hot springs, which are on the left side of the picture, with ramshackle change rooms on the right. 

I hadn’t planned on going into the hot springs to begin with, although I might just dangle my feet in them, but when Stefan saw the springs, he also decided it was not for him.  The thermal water was percolating up from the ground right near the shore of the lake.  It was then being caught in two shallow pools created by a perimeter of sandbags.  The first pool contained 15-20 Africans, mostly men and maybe a couple of women.  Of course, all eyes were on us, the five white foreigners walking in.  People were friendly but it just wasn’t appealing to me.  After a few minutes, I left the others to return to a little bar with patio area on the sandy shore of the lake…I’ll have a beer while the others enjoy their dip.

 

One of the “guides” came over to me as soon as he saw me leaving the hot springs.  He followed me to the bar and explained that I could buy the beer from the woman behind a counter and then take it to the table on the sand…uh, okay dude, I think I could have figured it out.  While the woman grabbed me a cold beer (after the usual question in Africa of “Warm or cold?…of course cold!), the guy asked if I could buy him a Fanta, which cost 1000 francs (about a $1).  Sure, why not?  Then he got bolder and asked for a small beer, sure…okay, a big beer?  Alright.

 

As we sat down at a table, we grabbed an extra chair for my small backpack.  Okay, well he is being helpful.  He told me about a few things about the area, like that we were looking across Lake Kivu at the Democratic Republic of Congo.  We talked about politics a bit and then the genocide in 1994.  I asked him his age, 29.  That means he was born during the genocide.  He got a bit teary eyed as he explained that he was the only survivor from his family.  Not to be callous, but I wasn’t totally sure if what he was saying was true or whether he was trying to play on my sympathy.  Regardless, it was an interesting conversation.

Looking across Lake Kivu toward the DRC:

A local paddling by:

A good spot for a beer:

The others trickled back from the hot springs and we headed back up to our car.  Koster, on a mission to find more cold beers, found some from a bar up on a hill across the road.  Looks like our last half of our journey to Kibuye was going to be a bit of a party.  It was a long, windy and hilly road with some great views of the lake.  It is definitely a beautiful area.

Koster defintely turned some local heads with his king gorilla tattoo:

A local beer factory.  On the right are red and blue crates for beer.

Koster took this pic from the bar where he procured more beer.  That's the rest of us with our taxi.

Great views on the way to Kibuye:

Julie had stayed at a place called Macheo Kivu Resort, which was where I was planning to stay had I not met these guys as I had found it on Booking.com.  The last 500 meters up to the resort was on a steep, rocky road.  We thanked our patient and friendly taxi driver, grabbed our stuff and walked up to the resort.  The view up the hill was stunning.

We were greeted by Claudette and Jack, two of the staff, and they showed us to our rooms after we finally figured out who would sleep where and with whom.  I had decided to get my own room.  The resort was a nice looking place with super vistas.  I was looking forward to the next 3-4 days here.  The others were only planning to stay for one night before heading back to Kigali…but who knows, plans can always change.

 

I’m not sure if the staff of Macheo what had just arrived on their doorstep…here comes a South African party!