The Congo Nile Trail: Day 5 Musasa to Mushabati & on to Kibuye (Dec. 17, 2018)

7:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. (5 1/2 hours) from Musasa to Mushabati.

We were pensive today, knowing this to be our last day on the dirt portion of the Congo Nile Trail and not knowing what to expect after today.  With every breath and every bend of the trail, we tried to memorize the changing scenery and the feelings it evoked in us.  We smiled and greeted everyone we met.  We didn’t want it to end.

However, the dirt portion of the Congo Nile Trail ends abruptly at Mushabati.  Once the dirt part of the Trail ends, the Congo Nile Trail is on the road.  When we got to the end of the dirt trail in Mushabati, it was a quite a shock and felt anti-climatic. We had been enjoying hiking on the dirt trails through breathtaking scenery and chatting with friendly villagers and children.  Now, we were stunned.  When the trail ends, it’s not gradual; it suddenly turns into a paved road. It is marked by a stop sign, which felt abrasive and other-worldy to us, after having hiked for four days on dirt trails and roads.  As we reached the stop sign, a horde of motorcycle drivers rushed at us, competing for our business.  They were disappointed when we declined, shouting “Oya, oya” (no, no) so that they’d stay away.

We had had no idea what to expect at Mushabati.  We had actually thought we might sleep here. However, Mushabati is simply a waypoint; it has no restaurants, no guesthouses, nothing of interest. At this point, most hikers officially end the hike because the beautiful and serene part of the hike is over; the rest, as we would eventually discover, consists of walking on a very busy road. So, here, the majority of hikers, having completed their hike, travel via bus or motorcycle taxi into the nearby city of Kibuye (The new name is Karongi, but most people still call it Kibuye) to spend the night.  We, however, had the crazy idea that we could take a boat on Lake Kivu from Mushabati to Kibuye.

So, once we waved the motorcycle drivers aside, Béné went into the Sunrise Bar conveniently located across the street from the trail’s end to buy a cold coke and get information.  She used her French to speak with an elderly man about how we could take a boat from Mushabati to Kibuye.  Unfortunately, he told her it was impossible, that we were too far from Lake Kivu.  With our plan to take a boat dashed, we bought tickets for the Kivu Belt bus for 1,000 francs (about $1.15) each and then waited about forty minutes in the hot sun at the bus stop near the end of the trail for a bus to Kibuye.  After some time, it started to rain, so all of us waiting for the bus darted across the street to huddle under an MTN (company that sells cell phone time) umbrella.  The bus ride took about one hour from Mushabati to the Kibuye bus station, which is conveniently located right in the city.

In Kibuye, there are many banks and ATM machines.  There is also a big covered outdoor market, where I purchased two bandanas for 500 francs (about 56 cents) each to cover my seriously sunburned wrists.  There are also plenty of pharmacies, and I went to a few before I found one selling sun screen for 10,000 francs ($11.10).  I also purchased band aids for my blistered toes.  In town, Béné was talking to boat captains trying to find a reasonably priced boat trip for our next leg of the journey, as we had decided it would be more fun to take a boat than to walk on a busy road with lots of traffic. Unfortunately, all the prices quoted were exorbitant.  Discouraged, we resigned ourselves to hiking on the road.

We walked from the center of the city up a steep hill and around a couple of bends to our guesthouse, Home St. Mary’s, its actual French name being “Accueil de St. Marie,” where we arrived about 4:30 p.m. and found individual rooms for 6,000 francs (less than $7) each.  The bathroom, which had only cold water, was clean, shared and down a hallway.  Our rooms were big, with a concrete floor.  Each had a double bed (though mine dipped in the middle) with a mosquito net, desk, chair, bookcase and a nightstand.  There were hooks on the wall to hang clothes.  The windows had screens and it was peaceful and quiet.  Two other guests, not hikers, were staying at this guesthouse.  The grounds are beautifully landscaped.

After settling in, we bathed and I nursed my irksome blisters.  Then, we walked down the hill and around a bend to another Catholic guesthouse, Home St. Jean, for dinner.  Home St. Jean sits on a hill overlooking a bay of Lake Kivu, so the views are gorgeous. As soon as we reached Home St. Jean, it began to pour.  So, we enjoyed our dinner to the sound of the rain and thinking how lucky we had been not to have been caught in rain yet.  I had fish brochettes, French fries and a raw salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots and onions.  Béné had a whole fish. We celebrated reaching the “sort of” halfway mark of the Congo Nile Trail by having a Primus Citron, Rwanda’s lemon-flavored beer.  Two hours after we arrived, when we left to return to our guesthouse, it was still raining, so we walked back in the rain.

The next morning, our breakfast was basic. Unlike most guesthouses and hotels in Rwanda, here breakfast was not included in the room price, but was 2,500 francs (less than $3) extra and disappointing. The service was lackluster. There was no coffee. The breakfast consisted of a paper-thin omelet with chopped onions inside and a slice of tomato on top, plus bread.