The Congo Nile Trail, Rwanda


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Overview

The Congo Nile Trail in Rwanda is a 5-10 day hike/cycle ride alongside the shores of Lake Kivu in the west of the country. It is an accessible hike/ride with plenty of accommodation on route. This page gives a factual overview of the hike. The links to other pages are to more personal and relatively amusing reflections on preparations and each day’s hike, written in our customary ironical style.

There are a few blogs like this one which can help you plan. However, part of the attraction is heading off with a sense of adventure and expectation that things will change and flex along the way. We undertook the hike in early summer 2019 so our account here is based on our experiences very recently.

Warning: post holocaust town names have been changed throughout Rwanda; new names are on road signs and bus timetables but people tend to use the old names in conversation; we will use both here, the old name cited first.

Hike or Bike?

The trail is in two halves. The first half from Gisenyi/Rubavu to Kibuye/Karongi is suitable for both hikers and bikers. The second half from Kibuye/Karongi to Cyangugu/Rusizi is now mostly a fully metalled road and only suitable for bikers. We will cover the first five day hiking section here only, since we are hikers.

There are a few other blogs to help the bikers among you. We suggest those of you planning to bike the trail consult this Bikepacking website here for advice specific to biking. For hikers, this is also useful to download a GPS track. However, because the bike route covers twice as much ground per day compared to the hike route, details of accommodation are missing. Where we can we will upload our own GPS tracks to each day page of the trail. Follow the links below as we post them.

Hiking the Trail

The Congo Nile Trail goes through rural areas of Rwanda, passing many villages and settlements on the way. It is up and down walking, not unlike a cost walk. This feature is accentuated by the hilly nature of western Rwanda in particular – the Land of a Thousand Hills. About half the trail is on dirt roads, the remainder on more pleasant tracks.

Is it a tough walk? The answer depends on a host of factors such as your age, your fitness levels, how far you walk each day, how heavy your pack is and what time of year you walk. We walked the Trail aged in our late 50s/early 60s, we are not unfit, our distances ranged from 15-28km per day, our packs were about 11kg each, and we walked in early summer (June). We found it hard at times. 

The Rwandan topography is very hilly indeed. You will go up hills and down inclines. The heat can become oppressive after midday, though not as bad as you might imagine in what is known as the Rwandan perpetual spring. Hydration is essential, as is taking care of your electrolyte balance. Some hills are very tough indeed, particularly the 5km/1500ft climb from the lakeside to Bumba which will tests the fitness of anyone. Day one from Gisenyi/Rubavu to Cymbiri is a very long one (26-28km) depending on where exactly you start from and which route choice you take. The path is on dirt tracks and shade can be sparse at times. Even the shorter days require frequent ascents and descents. The Congo Nile Trail is accessible, and enjoyable but it is no easy walk in the park.

Almost all of the paths are well used by local people so you will not be alone for very long, although we did find ourselves in some places where we could enjoy solitude. Most of the time, however, we were surrounded by groups of small children in particular, whose cries of “Mzungu! Mzungu!” we often heard as they spied us for the first time. These children take great pleasure in walking alongside hikers, testing their own English out or just laughing at private jokes and playing simple games. There are many adults around too walking along the roads, frequently carrying huge burdens – water, bananas, cassava – either on their heads or strapped to the backs of bicycles.

People have sometimes commented in accounts of the Rwandans that they are not particularly talkative, friendly or forthcoming in comparison to other people in east Africa. We do not agree. We made a point of saying hello in Kinyarwanda (‘Morarho‘ – all Kinyarwandan words here written phonetically) to as many people as we could. If we followed this up with the standard ‘how are you?’ (‘Amakaroo’ – literally “what is the news?“) we were invariably greeted with smiles, greetings and the usual response of “Nameyza” meaning ‘all is good’. Of course, we also responded in kind to their own greetings. This tiny attempt to speak the language of Rwanda broke any ice.

Younger Rwandans learn English in school and often have some stock phrases they want to try out “good morning”, “what is your name?”, “how are you?” etc. Some older Rwandans speak the colonial language of French and assume that white people can speak it, so we did have some French conversations along the way too. Many people, young and old, would hold or shake our hands once the ice had been broken. African people are renowned for their friendliness and we found Rwandans no different, provided we made the effort. After all, it is we who are visitors to their country so it beholds us to make the first approach.

The children will also ask you for money or sweets (‘bon bon’ orChupa‘). The only other hiker we met on the whole trail had found this irritating and bothersome. We did not mind at all. It seemed that for the children these requests were more about ‘trying it on’ with us than real attempts at begging. Rather than take it seriously, we joked with them about their requests and laughed them off. It did not stop them walking alongside of us but there was no apparent resentment or aggressive begging. It felt to us that it was all part of a game – in fact we saw adults laughing at the children (and us) when this was going on. Roll with it and definitely don’t get cross and all will be fine.

We did get hustled for money once, this time by an adult, who detached himself from a group walking the opposite way to us and accompanied us along the trail with promises of showing us a great viewpoint some considerable way away. We had an excellent conversation with him in good French. Of course, the viewpoint was on the trail and we would have come across it anyway. Inevitably, he then asked for some money for his trouble, actually for ointment for his ‘sick child’. Rose (who lives in India and is well versed in handling begging ruses) did not want to hand over any cash, but I gave the chap 2,000 Rwandan francs – about £2 to see him on his way. After that, if any other adults tagged along with us as ‘guides’ we made it very clear we did not require a guide and they usually gave up. We must emphasise, however, that this was a very rare experience, happening only two or three times in the whole hike.

Conversely, we did have to ask or check the way many times and on all these numerous occasions directions were given us happily. However, the Trail signage is very good indeed. We had read a couple of blogs from previous years that had posted photos of battered and indistinct signposts. It appears that the Rwandan government has replaced the signs for 2019 and there are very many, at all significant junctions, all clearly indicating the route. It is still good to ask of course and even better to be following a GPS track. There are some choices to be made where the track can go in more than one direction, often joining up again later but sometimes not. The new signs are excellent.

Day 1 Coming soon

Day 2 Coming soon

Day 3 Coming soon

Day 4 Coming soon

Day 5 Coming soon

Our previous posts on the Congo Nile Trail

  1. The Rwandawander: Congo Nile Trail Preparations 1
  2. The Rwandawander: Congo Nile Trail Preparations 2
  3. The Rwandawander: Congo Nile Trail Preparations 3
  4. Rose is Rwandarambling: The Amble in Rwanda
  5. From A to B via Z

 

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