After a very good dinner and breakfast we started on 24.12.2020 to Nyungwe National Park to look for chimpanzees. After a short drive, we reached our destination and went through the standard program. Our small hiking group was completed by a Boston family. The elderly gentlemen were also economists and data scientists and were traveling through Rwanda with their 20-year-old daughter. Contrary to all preconceptions, these 3 were communicative, super nice and Democrats through and through. The woman paid extra for a porter to assist her as she made her way through the jungle. As it turned out later, she had recently had major knee surgery and was not yet walking well again. This slowed down the whole group a lot and so we saw the chimpanzees unfortunately only at a great distance in the trees in their nest – mostly with their backs to us. The difficult terrain and the rain that had started in the meantime also led to the fact that the SLR camera remained mostly in the backpack.

  • Our “easy” way through the rainforest

After our walk back and the continuation to our 2nd program point of this day, a canopy walk at the height of the treetops of the rainforest, the rain became heavier and heavier. About halfway through this walk, the rain became so heavy that we all had to put on the rain gear (including our ranger) and the paths became visibly more slippery we already feared that our canopy tour would be over here before it had really begun. But once again we were lucky. Arrived at the place of action and after a wet waiting time of 20min, the rain let up so far that we could enter the steel construction. The strong swinging took some getting used to, but was still fun. Unfortunately, due to the weather the visibility was so bad that one could hardly see anything interesting. So only a few conversations and shenanigans with the ranger and an Australian (who was part of our group) remained at a height of just over 200m above the ground.

  • After the rain

Back at the resort, we were able to enjoy the rich, previously unannounced, Christmas buffet – a highlight of the meal at the resort was the chili paste provided. As the night before, Andreas had to snack on it again and burst into tears once more, much to the delight of the female waitress. This paste must have been created by the devil himself. Afterwards, we had to pack our bags again and clarify the last formalities for our next stop online.