Lady Bubbles

We have a new cat! Lady Bubbles joined Magilla Glub Glub, Bethany and me to make a family of four in our Kigali home. She's a lot littler than MG3. Her mom was super skinny and probably about 1/3 the size of our big kitty. The two cats seem to get along and Glubbers is a great big brother. A few pictures are included.

Kayaking the Nyabarongo River

 

 

In May 2013, Bethany Ericson and I kayaked the Nyabarongo River. We put in just east of Kigali at the bridge near the Nyabugogo bust stop and paddled about 28 miles. Bethany Gauthier (wifey) was our shuttle bunny. She picked us up at the bridge on the Nyamata-Kigali road south of the city. It took 6 hours to paddle the flat water, meandering river through papyrus swamp and sugar cane. We saw lots of birds, some farmers and one hippo. Hippo was awesome and from that point on every time we saw a swirl of water in the river we expected another hippo to pop up and eat our inflatable kayaks. I didn't get any pictures when we passed it, so I paddled back up river to get close enough for pictures unit it reared up and dove in the water towards me, at which point I back paddled furiously and let him / her be. About half way through the trip, the Nyabarongo joins the Kegera River (or Akegera River, depending on what source you're looking at). Eventually this water makes it to Lake Victoria. Water was kind of dirty and I don't think I'd want to swim in it, but it was a nice paddle. Lots of people were excited to see up inflating the kayaks so we had about 30 people including some police standing on the bridge watching our launch. Despite being so close to Kigali, there is no development anywhere on the river until the bridge at the take out. Next time I'll bring a better camera and my fishing pole.

 

Total Distance:       28 Miles (45 Kilometers)

Start Location:       West of Nyabugogo Bus Station on Rwanda 3, near Ruyenzi

End Location:         South of Sonnatubes on the Kigali-Nyamata Road near Gahanga