In 2017, Rose and I had compiled the definitive kit list for our previous Nepalese wander. Or so we thought. We wrote about it here. Sadly, this meant we hauled around 17kg of said kit up and down the Indigenous Peoples’ Trail during 2017. On our backs. It was big but it wasn’t clever.
This time, we avowed, things were going to be different. Very different. This time we were going to travel sylph like, gliding effortlessly up hills (‘colines‘ in Rwanda), laughing joyously at the ease with which we skipped merrily along, our packs bouncing elastically in time with the airy steps of our hike. This time 10kg was the target. This time we were really going to smell.
The problem with this plan is that our actual clothes were the least part of the weight. Two pairs of everything was all we allowed ourselves, from underpants to socks, trousers, tee shirts and, well…er…that was about it actually. We had already solved the water problem through the ingenious artifice of an inbuilt filter in our drinking bottles, meaning less water to be carried, but there were other considerations. Lots of considerations. We decided to tackle them one by one.
Firstly, we needed to sleep. In a sleeping bag. Normal sleeping bags weigh around 1.5kg or more. Given the night time temperature in Rwanda doesn’t really drop below 16 degrees centigrade (61F) we both went for a radically light one-season bag. Rose went all deluxe goose down, weighing in at 570g, whilst Wanderingman’s cheap hollowfibre effort tipped the scales at a mighty 650g. Result.
Then Rose had a slightly odd turn. He bought two hammocks. He had no idea if there are trees on the Rwandawanda (in fact we know virtually nothing about the wander at all – more of this later) so how these might provide effective shelter was a complete mystery. Each hammock weighed a colossal 740g. Two of them weighed as much as a single two-person tent. But, they had inbuilt mosquito nets and they sounded fun. If trees were conspicuous by their absence then we could always take turns holding them up whilst the other one slept. We took them.
The issue of mosquitos raised an anxiety provoking set of thoughts. Unlike Nepal, Rwanda is in a malarial zone and the Congo Nile Trail runs down the eastern side of Lake Kivu. A lake. Where mosquitos live. And eat. For the times when we might not be sleeping suspended in trees, we needed additional cover. Wanderingman bought a super lightweight mosquito net for £20, unwrapped it and threw it away. Lightweight equalled tiny and useless. A stronger, larger and more stable net was purloined from supplies left over from Wanderingman Junior’s trips to the Far East some years earlier and that went into the pack too. Plus repellant, lots of it. We were into kilogram territory by now, just to keep tiny buzzing insects at bay.
To further assist with sleeping, particularly given the fact that our sleeping bags were offering negligible ground insulation, some form of ‘lightweight’ sleeping mat was required, preferably a self-inflating one to save space in what was threatening to become a somewhat jostled rucksack. In that went, the last of the big items. Sleeping bag, hammock, mosquito net and sleeping mat, to join the all singing all dancing water bottle/municipal filtration plant.
Ah, but what about emergencies? One more journey to the outdoor shop to return with a fully comprehensive mobile operating theatre, including cannulas, scalpels, anaesthetic gas bottles, scrubs (videos) and Gray’s anatomy (book). You never know. You never know.
This time, what we decided not to take was the whole plethora of cooking equipment, stoves fuel bottles and utensils that we previously gave a free ride to during the Nepal wander. There would be no freeloaders this time. This time, we would be lean and mean, though to be honest it appeared that around 50% of the weight consisted of routine and emergency medical supplies including prescribed and unprescribed medication. This wasn’t shaping up to be a wander so much as a summer holiday undertaken by a mobile chemist shop.
The Rwandawander: Pharmacists on Tour