{"id":1367,"date":"2014-07-17T17:20:29","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T17:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2014-07-22T08:45:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T08:45:15","slug":"face-of-africa-with-joe-angelo-on-sparky-8th-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/2014\/07\/face-of-africa-with-joe-angelo-on-sparky-8th-july\/","title":{"rendered":"Face of Africa with Joe & Angelo on Sparky – 8th July – Days 1-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Face of Africa with Joe & Angelo on Sparky – 8th July – Days 1-3.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Written by Joe<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Day 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"visiting<\/a>

Keeping the flame alive<\/p><\/div>\n

We\u00a0left\u00a0Discover\u00a0Rwanda Youth Hostel\u00a0after\u00a0breakfast\u00a0at 7.30am\u00a0and\u00a0drove through\u00a0the capital city of\u00a0Kigali to the Genocide Memorial.The\u00a0Rwanda\u00a0Genocide was\u00a0of course\u00a0the 1994 mass killing of\u00a0Rwanda\u2019s\u00a0Tutsis and Hutu political moderates\u00a0by the\u00a0Hutu\u00a0dominated government under their power ideology. Estimates\u00a0of death toll\u00a0have ranged between 500,000\u00a0and 1,000,000\u00a0or as much as 20% of the total population of the country.<\/p>\n

After\u00a0two\u00a0and a half hours\u00a0in the\u00a0genocide museum\u00a0everyone was ready to go having learned something about the events of 1994.<\/p>\n

So after some lunch, we\u00a0drove through\u00a0this\u00a0“Land\u00a0of\u00a0a\u00a0thousand\u00a0hills”\u00a0on\u00a0our way to\u00a0Uganda.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0Kigali\u00a0we\u00a0had like\u00a090km\u00a0to\u00a0Musanze, sometimes called\u00a0Ruhengeri town, where\u00a0one of\u00a0the\u00a0group\u00a0had\u00a0requested\u00a0us to do a quick\u00a0stop\u00a0if time\u00a0will\u00a0allow us.<\/p>\n

\"cycling,<\/a>

African Rising Cycling Centre<\/p><\/div>\n

Stephen Norton has been following\u00a0the Rwandan\u00a0cycling\u00a0team\u00a0on line and\u00a0because we\u00a0were driving through Musanze,\u00a0the group\u00a0agreed we do a stop there. Africa Rising Cycling Centre is home of Team Rwanda,\u00a04km up Kinigi Road. Jonathan “Jock” Boyer is the coach of Team Rwanda. Jock was the first American to ride in the Tour de France in 1981; he came to Rwanda as a guest of Tom Ritchey to assist with a local race.<\/p>\n

At that race they spotted talent like Adrien and in 2007 he moved to Rwanda and has grown the program ever since.<\/p>\n

We were met by Jock himself who took us on a tour of the place. It’s such a beautiful place to visit. After everyone had shaken his hand, we left Team Rwanda and headed for the Cyanika border. We had only 25km to the border so we were making good time. At 3.30pm we arrived at the border and an easy crossing to Uganda.<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"volunteer<\/a>

Visiting a local town<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u00a0had\u00a0to give\u00a0Sparky\u00a0a good clean! (Sparky is our truck in case you’re wondering!)<\/p>\n

It is a free\u00a0day for\u00a0everyone apart\u00a0from James\u00a0who is\u00a0gorilla\u00a0trekking a day early.<\/p>\n

Stephen and Danica\u00a0went\u00a0for\u00a0a\u00a0run\u00a0to Lake\u00a0Mutanda. Tim went\u00a0to see the Golden monkeys. Meagan did\u00a0a visit to Batwa pygmy\u00a0village.Kara\u00a0and\u00a0Arron went\u00a0to kisoro\u00a0town.<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"african<\/a>

Experiencing the stunning views in Africa<\/p><\/div>\n

Early\u00a0start\u00a0for\u00a0gorilla\u00a0trekking\u00a0day! There\u00a0are\u00a0fewer\u00a0than\u00a0900\u00a0mountain gorillas\u00a0left\u00a0in the world today. The\u00a0world\u2019s\u00a0last\u00a0mountain\u00a0gorillas\u00a0live\u00a0in the rainforests\u00a0of the\u00a0Rwanda, Uganda\u00a0and Democratic Republic\u00a0of Congo. The\u00a0area\u00a0covers 790,000 hectares of parkland\u00a0and massive volcanoes (some of which are still active) reach as high as 4,500 meters\u00a0tall. Mountain gorillas\u00a0live in family\u00a0groups that vary in size from\u00a05 to 35 members. Typically the family is made\u00a0up\u00a0of one or two adult males (age 12 years\u00a0or older called Silverbacks),several younger males (called\u00a0Blackbacks),\u00a0adult\u00a0females, juveniles and infants. The dominant Silverback\u00a0is\u00a0in charge\u00a0of the group\u2019s\u00a0daily travels in search of food. He\u00a0also protects\u00a0the group from outside dangers, such as intruding silverbacks from other\u00a0groups, poachers, and other animals.<\/p>\n

The group returned from trekking at 4.30pm, tired but very happy having seen the gorillas! After showers everyone was ready to go for sunset dinner at Lake Mutanda.<\/p>\n

\"african<\/a>

Dinner for the gang<\/p><\/div>\n

We sat around the campfire before dinner with a cold Nile Special talking about today’s highlights. Our candlelit dinner consisted of BBQ chicken, beef kebabs, roast potatoes, yummy peanut sauce, mixed vegetables and some pineapple. All happy after dinner, we transferred back to our accommodation ready for bed after a long day of trekking.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Face of Africa with Joe & Angelo on Sparky – 8th July – Days 1-3. Written by Joe Day 1 We\u00a0left\u00a0Discover\u00a0Rwanda Youth Hostel\u00a0after\u00a0breakfast\u00a0at 7.30am\u00a0and\u00a0drove through\u00a0the capital city of\u00a0Kigali to the Genocide Memorial.The\u00a0Rwanda\u00a0Genocide was\u00a0of course\u00a0the 1994 mass killing of\u00a0Rwanda\u2019s\u00a0Tutsis and Hutu … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[640],"tags":[40,637,79,636,158,149],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-8th-july-2014-face-of-africa-with-joe-angelo-on-sparky","tag-absolute-africa","tag-africa-rising-cycling-centre","tag-african-adventure","tag-face-of-africa","tag-gorilla-trekking","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}