Our final destination for the day is our hotel, The Chimpanzee Lodge in the heart of the Nyungwe Forest. The map tells us that it is a mere 110km drive. Normally that should take us about an hour, right? Not here though. We are in for a 3.5 hour drive. Buckle in!

The scenery we have been staring at from the Land Cruiser is absolutely stunning. There are hills on top of hills, in front of hills, behind hills, beside even more hills. Nothing but rolling hills for as far as the eye can see.

There is farmland with rice paddies, beans, bananas and more. Everything we see is green and lush and clean. There isn’t a single pile of waste or garbage anywhere, everything has been kept tidy, swept up and looked after with pride.

From the highway, we witnessed men, women and children working to collect their firewood, picking up the dead and fallen leaves, weeding their gardens, sweeping their pathways, and taking care of their homes. Along the highway are dozens of people carrying their loads of beans, charcoal, pineapples, water, or any number of necessities home or to the marketplace to sell. People in motion, always.

At one point, Abdoul, our driver, notices a man on his front step gathering piles of dried bean plants and promptly slams on the brakes. Right in the middle of the highway. He yells out the window asking the gentleman to show us how he will beat the beans with a large stick to get the shells off. The gentleman happily obliges. Any traffic we interfered with just went around us, no bother at all. Love it.

We are now entering the Nyungwe Forest. The roads are getting even twistier and we are doing way more climbing than descending. There are no longer people milling about, living their lives, we are getting further and further away from the villages. The only sign of life we are seeing now is small groups of soldiers patrolling the highway at 2 or 3 km intervals, some monkeys and a duiker – a small deer like animal. I’m sure there are many animals in the jungle that we are not seeing.

This windy road, surrounded by thick trees, seemed to go on forever. There was not a lot of traffic on the highway, but we still didn’t go faster than 40km/hour because of how many twists and turns there were. Eventually, we crested the hill and came to our hotel.

Abdoul was driving as fast as he possibly could because he knew there was a fantastic surprise waiting for us at the Lodge. A huge traditional dance and drum troupe greeted us when we arrived and wanted to perform for us. About 30 kids and young adults danced and drummed for almost an hour, with only us as the audience. It was extremely special and we loved every minute of it. Any traveling fatigue we may have had vanished.

They eventually brought us up to try our hand at dancing and drumming, being very patient with us as we butchered the timing of the drum beat or turned the wrong direction while dancing. What a blast!