Category: Mount Bisoke, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

Mount Bisoke, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

Gerry and I spend four days exploring Volcanoes National Park. We leave our hotel in Musanze every morning at 6 am to head to the park headquarters for instructions and to meet our guide for the day. We do a canoe trip, gorilla trek, golden monkey trek and a climb to the summit of Mount Bisoke on the four successive days.

Mount Bisoke is a dormant volcano in the Virunga Mountains of the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. It straddles the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Bisoke’s last eruption was in 1957 and it has a crater lake at the summit. Karisoke Research Center founded by Dian Fossey and her tomb are in the valley to the southwest of the mountain. Fossey formed the name of her research center from the names of two nearby vocanoes, Mt. Karisimbi and Mt. Bisoke.

The park boundary is delimited by a stone fence.
About a dozen soldiers with weapons accompany us to the summit, supposedly for protection against gorillas, elephants and buffaloes. I wonder whether our proximity to the border with the very unstable Democratic Republic of Congo has anything to do with their assignment to protect us.
The trail is nasty in places.
RDC is the French version of DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo. The summit is on the other side of the crater lake.
The temperature is very chilly at over 12,000 feet with a strong wind, so the sun is much appreciated when the clouds part to let the rays through. The DRC and summit are on the other side of the lake.
There is wildlife here. See the antelope?
There it is.
Pyethrum is very photogenic. Pyrethrum was a genus of several Old World plants now classified as Chrysanthemum or Tanacetum.  Pyrethrum is still used as the name of some Chrysanthemum plants and is the name of a natural insecticide made from the dried flower heads of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium and Chrysanthemum coccineum. Cultivation of pyrethrum lead to destruction of much mountain gorilla habitat even after establishment of the national park.