The Best Plan Ever Hatched in the History of Plans...

Dad-
I need you to read this aloud to Mom. She already knows most of the story, but this is the true version of events in its entirety. Needless to say, when I describe certain things, you should lie, but act natural, and tell her something totally harmless so it doesn't seem like this was the dumbest thing I've ever done. (It was totally freakin' awesome and the coolest weekend I've ever had in truth.) If you don't help me with this one I'll end up with a series of never ending Mom lectures. Then I will file court papers to disown you. Think wisely and choose carefully my friend...
Love,
Mel

This all started with reading. I remember teachers, early in my life telling me how great ideas come from reading. Well, really bad ideas come from reading too and certainly, really risky ideas. And I love to read...and my mom says I'm often lacking in "better judgment/common sense". I was looking through the Rwanda guide book at the house and noticed that Rwanda happens to have the largest mountain rain forest in all of Africa. I'm in Rwanda. I've always wanted to see a rainforest. Hmm...

Friday morning I'm up and out the door at 5:30 with a backpack full of over overnight/rain forest essentials and trudge my way to the bus stop. That's right. Getting on the bus (well the first bus was sold out) for a five hour bus ride (remember those minibuses I was talking about...) setting out on my first solo adventure. [Ok Dad, instead of five hours away from Kigali, you say "45 minutes, in fact you can still see the city. Actually, it was right down the street from the American Embassy. And replace solo adventure with "group organized mediocre events". ]

On the road to Nyungwe National Forest, I hit a bit of a snag as I realize I will need to buy my return ticket in Cyangugu, an hour past my destination of Gisakuru Tea Estates. Travel between Cyangugu and Gisakuru is extremely limited, but lucky me, I'm sitting next to this awesome guy that has the bright idea to telephone the bus company in Cyangugu and have them bring me my return ticket as a bus departing from there passes our bus on it's way in. Great! Problem #1 solved. The other bus passed us up and our bus driver honked madly, waving his arms so fast, they might fly off, then got out of the bus and chased the other bus down. More trouble than I thought it would be, but I got my ticket and thanked the driver.

We also got pulled over by the Rwandan police and had our bus searched. [Again, Dad, you read, nothing eventful happened for the remainder of the ride.] This is actually pretty standard police procedure, seeing as most police are stationed as human road blocks, no cars, and pull people over to check their license and registration. Something wasn't right with the tags from the bus company, so our driver got a ticket. The man next to me said a ticket can cost about $100 USD and a driver is lucky to make $200 USD in a year. The Rwandan government is very good at math, and punishments.

Eventually I make it to the tea estates and walk into the parking lot of the lodge/ORTPN office. I was greeted by a few rangers who took me to the guest house to check in. I meet the man in charge of the inn and am informed they are completely booked. Uh, ok. After a few minutes he comes back to tell me there is an opening because a primate safari group didn't show up, but of course it was the most expensive room.

I moved my stuff in and returned to the office to set up my adventure for the next day. What are you planning to do today? Uh...what can I do today?

Twenty minutes later I'm walking down the main road on my way to a nearby tea estate to go looking for Colobus monkeys in a fragment forest. The whole trip took about four hours and of course, we didn't see the monkeys along the outside of the forest, so the guide decided to take me down a tiny trail into the middle of the forest. After walking down one side, up the other, around the back, down again, and halfway back up we finally spotted a group of them. They were unbelievably difficult to see at first because these monkeys are nearly all black and were hiding in an overgrown bush that was much taller than I am, with branches that hung to the ground. The shadows made it nearly impossible to find them. At first you only see one, then one more, then twenty, thirty. There were a few young ones in the bunch and I watched them for over an hour, jump fearlessly from tree to tree. Right over my head. One monkey came within three feet of me, walking out onto a branch and sat checking me out while he ate. He kept sticking his head out towards me and sniffing. I assure you it's because I smelled good.

After a while they moved on and my guide was off. Racing to keep up, I almost plowed right into the back of him as he stopped and looked into the tree tops. My gaze followed his and I watched as the troupe jumped from one branch to the next like the long jump skiers in the olympics. Arms back, head first. I heard a strange sound around me and thought the overcast sky and started to rain down. Nope, monkey pee as my guide stated so nonchalantly. Great. After walking back out of the forest, I checked myself and my bag...no pee so I'm ready to get back to the guest house.

One the way home we passed a school as the kids were getting out. After walking for a bit, I turned around to see who was making all the noise behind me. Twenty kids were following me. My guide told me they were arguing and daring each other to talk to me. So I said hello to them, Muraho. Amakuru? Twenty little voices yell Ni meza! and we all laugh. They followed me all the way back to the ORTPN office and stand at the driveway entrance waiving at me until the park rangers shooed them away.

I ate dinner. The best cream of something soup I've ever had! I climbed into bed exhausted and listened to an episode of Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! until I fell asleep...it'll be an early start the next morning.