Above: Life-size statue of Grauer’s gorilla at Kahuzi-Biega National Park, DRC. Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: 13 July 2019
Part 2 of 2
While waiting for the great gorilla safari planned for the following day from Bukavu on the shores of Lake Kivu in the Albertine Rift, the taxi driver arrives for the chimpanzee sanctuary in Lwiro that is 50 kilometers away.
Continue reading “At Kahuzi Biega in Search of the Endemic Grauer’s Gorilla in DR Congo”
Above: Mtelo Peak from Mtelo View Eco Lodge. Copyright Rupi Mangat.
Published: The East African Nation media
It’s dark and the sky is blanketed in stars. We’re following John Yaposiwa Ywalasiwa riding on his pikipiki up a road through the Sekerr mountains in the land of the Pokot in north-western Kenya. It’s an area only visited by few intrepid travellers. The road is unusual – two rail-like tracks cemented on murram leading to the booster. An hour later, we’re finally on one of the peaks facing Mt Mtelo, the sacred mountain of the Pokot.
Continue reading “On Mtelo the sacred mountain of the Pokot”
Above: Approaching Bukavu from Lake Kivu – Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: 6 July 2019
Spending lazy days in Goma with family and discovering Congolese cuisine like the famous fish sambaza and the plaintain lintula, sipping coffee in smart restaurants like Nyumbani for eastern Congo people speak Swahili unlike Kinshasa where Lingala is the lingua franca and French spoken widely, the gorilla painted on a gate caught my attention. It was a Grauer’s gorilla and endemic to DRC.
I’d never heard about this sub-species of mountain gorilla unlike its more famous cousin in the Virunga mountains. A visit to the office inside revealed that Grauer’s gorilla is found only in Kahuzi-Biega National Park not far from a town called Bukavu that’s 195 kilometers on the southern end of the lake. The researcher at the office was heading that way. He was happy to take us with him. My excitement shot through the clouds. Continue reading “In Search of the Endemic Grauer’s Gorilla in the Democratic Republic of Congo”
Above: Sunrise at South Nandi Forest surrounded by Nyayo Tea Zone at Kobujoi. May 2019. Copyright Rupi Mangat
It’s dawn. And magical.
In the first light, the rising sun illuminates the tea and forest-clad peaks of the South Nandi Forest as a white mist lifts languidly from the valleys. It’s so beautiful an image that we have to stop to take it all in. On the other side of the road that stretches from Kapsabet to Nandi Hills Town via Serem, the ancient rock-clad hills of Maragoli lines Lake Victoria that is Africa’s largest lake.
Above: Boy practising acrobatics by Lake Kivu in Gisenyi, Rwanda. Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: The East African Nation Media 26 June 2019
Goma and Gisenyi echo Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, based on a peaceful London and a Paris dogged by unrest before and after the French Revolution.
Goma and Gisenyi share a horrific history — the Congo wars and the Rwandan Genocide Against Tutsi.
Recently I spent a few days in the two cities separated by an international border, Goma in DR Congo and Gisenyi in Rwanda. Gisenyi is genteel while Goma is a work in progress after being dogged by years of unrest — wars and a volcano eruption. Both cities straddle Lake Kivu in the Albertine Rift. The lake is a source of methane and carbon dioxide gases that have the potential of being hazardous.
LIFESTYLE Continue reading “Goma and Gisenyi: A Tale Of Two Cities”
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