Until this day, I didn't know
That I had an adventuress mother !

So my dear mother took the plane to Bujumbura (Burundi) and got acquainted with nuns who accommodated her until the next day, for the correspondence towards Goma.

But this plane having been requisitioned by servicemen, Mom simply waited, discovering Buja and having fun.

On my side however, being almost alone in Goma because all other expatriates had gone on holiday in Kenya, I spent time in my Jeep, between the offices of an airfreight company which had a radio, the airfield, and cafes frequented by some local pilots. No news of Mama. Every time a plane passed over the city, I rushed to the field.

Three days of this small ballet later, I saw my mother simply landing in Goma, and be at once "taxed" the toothpaste tubes which she had brought me by the customs officer (the only one to whom I had not offered a little gift in advance). Well, I'll have to buy them back later at the market...

Dear Mouma...

Well, the situation is too tense in the city, let's leave as quickly as possible to the wilderness. Program: strolls in the Jeep, animals in the Rwindi, the mountains and Kanyabayonga for the landscape, and in the end the Gorillas in Djomba. Mom agrees, and pays the "tourist" fees for the licenses and let pass, whereas I pay the "resident" price, a hundred times cheaper :

"But, citizen, it's my mother !"
- "Yes boss, but your mother is also our mother, and our mother is generous !"
Hem...

En piste !

Mom discovers Africa bit by bit, while she had never left the European continent previously. This trip was only her first one : she joined me later in Louisiana, then in Vietnam, went with her friends to Quebec... But that's another story. Let's go back to our... Lions.

In those times, we were safer
in the wilderness than in the city !

Hey ! They forgot to remove this old sign,
since 1960, on this old abandoned track...

That doesn't sound good : Nelly and Ernest, whom we stopped by along the way and who welcomed us with open arms as usual, tell us that the track is closed farther: a truck overturned and blocks it completely.

We spend the night there, visit the coffee plantation, have a good time.

Some vehicles pass in the other direction, tell us that they had to turn back: the track is completely blocked, and what's more, there are many armed and vindictive servicemen in the zone.

But Ernest, as an old broussard he is, knows another track, almost abandoned : "You go to Tongo and then you continue straight ahead" - "But the track stops in Tongo, doesn't it ?" - "No, in fact almost nobody uses it anymore, but it continues beyond the mountain and joins the main track, farther than the accident".

Arrival

OUF. Here we're safe, with the lions and the hyenas ;) This time, because the volunteers of the EEC can not lend us their chalets, we live and eat in the Rwindi hotel, held by Italians and famous for its reception and its kitchen in these "old days".

Our small bungalows are comfortable and we are going to be able to rest and take advantage of the park at the same time.

I hire my usual guard, and from the next day at dawn we are on the tracks : in the wilderness, it is necessary to go out early !

Superb Topis...

First lion !

Well, it's an old lioness gone bald, but all the same...

And I can very well imagine, to have felt them a few months before, the feelings of Mom, sitting in my small Jeep opened to any wind, two metres from a free lioness, with the cannon of the guard's rifle above her shoulder...

I shall have the luck to be able to show her dozens of lions, in group or isolated, hunting or sampling an antelope, resting or playing with lion cubs...

Of all the animals living in this region, it is really the lions whom I prefer.

I find them fascinating, big cats with such a nice look, who are so powerful when they want but let it appear only by an impressive presence.

We would like to caress them, but at the same time feel it would be inappropriate and that the slightest gesture this way would break the affable tranquillity of Her Majesty...

Of course, Her Majesty has some needs as everybody: it's natural!

That's also what makes the magic of a wild reserve : one sees there animals living, free, in all the aspects of their daily life.

They do not make their "show" for the guests:

It is the guests who have to, humbly and patiently, adapt themselves to the animals' schedules, find the place which they chose to go hunting or relax that day, and accept that maybe the lion does not want to move his behind for several hours...

If you wondered why there was a humid spot
on the ground on the previous picture...

Well, of course there are some who like posing for the picture... Would it be due to the relationship of this one with the human beings ;)?

No, no, it's not E.T.: it's a baboon.

According to me, he's the worst hooligan of the jungle (see the Rwindi-2 page), but he's so nice ;)

There are others who like clowning around.

I had already told you that driving in the wilderness requires instinct and that it's not a good idea to charge without looking, didn't I ?

Here is another good example : please, do not try to cross this small mud puddle with your car, even with a good 4x4.

Really, I disadvise you to.

Its occupant would not appreciate, I believe, and as on the ground he runs fast in spite of his three tons, you would certainly regret it.

Your car weighs how much?

Less than a ton, like my Willys?

One and a half ton, like a modern 4x4 ?

Ridiculous, anyway.

"Please, Mr. Hippo, be nice :
A little smile for the picture ? Cheese !"

"No ? Ok, then..."

"You see, Mom, mud baths,
That does not make people more kind !"

- "It's true, son, but it's good for the skin."

"Oh ? Let's go bathe, then ?"

- "H'm... Later, son, later."

For a few days, we continued so to observe animals on the various tracks of the Rwindi, going to eat some roasted fish in Vitshumbi or some dry meat in the Kanyabayonga mountains...

Pitying my poor guard, who had to sit on my diesel reserve in the back of the Jeep, because there were only two seats... I believe that his buttocks still remember these trips ! Hey, a Jeep is a Jeep, and I was the only one there without a Pajero or Landcruiser...

In the evening ? Quietly at the hotel, listening to the animals for lack of being able to see them...

We then went to see the mountain gorillas in Djomba, what I shall tell you in detail on the "gorillas" page.

So we spent more than a week in the wilderness, and if we did appreciate to escape the insurection atmosphere of Goma, we were exhausted and happy to return to my place in the city.

On the way back, I had the very bad idea to want to offer to my dear Mouma the magnificent vision of the sunset on Lake Kivu, seen from the volcano on the verge of the city. So we stopped at the edge of the track, a few kilometres from Goma, to attend a sunset which finally turned out disappointing.

"Mmm ! This antelope is really tender !
Certainly not fed with
Animal flours !
Come, darling, have a beefsteak !"

There are not many hyenas in the Rwindi,
And they are rather difficult to observe.

It was only the beginning of our hard return to the "civilization"... By going down towards Goma after the nightfall, we were stopped by servicemen near the airfield.

If I had been alone, I would have charged through as I did usually (the servicemen and policemen stopped vehicles at almost every crossroads to raise money, at this time).

With mom, no way to take this risk (I was once jailed by a Sergeant who had not jumped out of the way and had ended on the hood of my Jeep).

So we had to pay, and not a little : "Boss, your mom is ours also, you have to be generous for her children" etc.

Pff ! Welcome to Zaire, Mom !