Gisenye

We woke to sunshine - yay! - and proceeded north along the ridge above the lake. High up a narrow, winding dirt road with extremely picturesque views of the lake, the surrounding hills and lush green crops. The first sunny day after lots of rain the streams of water flowing down the slopes had created ruts down and across the road. We passed several teams of local villagers carefully tending the road - filling in the holes and raking the mud even. This was an incredible drive, climbing and diving along the ridge, passing through banana and tea plantations and the many villages with children clamouring for water bottles or to practice their english.

We detoured to Gisenye, which is a bit of a resort town on the tip of the lake, for a late lunch and found ourselves at the DRC border. Whoops! There were some Unicef vehicles flying purple flags heading across and later we passed UNHCR vehicles with the same flags. I wonder what they signify.

Then we headed up to the Park National des Volcans, where Duncan will go gorilla trekking tomorrow.