Lake Kivu

As I mentioned yesterday, our group hopped on a bus to Kibuye this morning, with the first destination being Lake Kivu on the western border of Rwanda.  According to Wikipedia, it’s one of three “exploding lakes,” where mass extinction can occur due to gigantic gaseous discharges.  The concept is fascinating enough that I’ve decided to save you some hyperlink reading and just paste it here:

“Scientists hypothesize that sufficient volcanic interaction with the lake's bottom water that has high gas concentrations would heat water, force the methane out of the water, spark a methane explosion, and trigger a nearly simultaneous release of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then suffocate large numbers of people in the lake basin as the gases roll off the lake surface. It is also possible that the lake could spawn lake tsunamis as gas explodes out of it.”

It apparently happens on a millennial scale, so here’s to hoping it doesn’t pick today or tomorrow to do its thing.  In the meantime, since I seem to have better internet availability here, I’ve decided to go with more of a photo blog this time around.  And here goes. 

We left from Kigali around 9:00 AM this morning, and the drive to Kibuye was over three hours through winding countryside.  It was gorgeous as always, but it was rough on those with weaker stomachs. We stopped a few times to let one or two people vomit (at least they had a good view in the process), and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that half of the group ordered Sprite at lunch.  I wasn't feeling the need to order Sprite, and that may have been for the best when my (whole) Tilapia came out after a 2-3 hour wait.  In all reality, it actually tasted  quite good, although there was limited meat to be found.

The lake itself seems to be full of islands and peninsulas.  Add a seemingly constant fog/mist to the mix, and it appears that some of the islands further out are just floating in the sky.  It's really surreal at times.

We took a boat ride out onto the lake after "lunch" to see the area near the guesthouse where we're staying.  It was nearing sunset by the time we actually loaded up (gets dark around 6:00 PM here), and I tried my best to capture some of the sights with my camera's limited capabilities (it's been having a number of errors lately  making focusing difficult and causing it to randomly shut down on occasion).  It the case of this picture, I tried to show just how much it looked like boats were floating in the sky at times.

After driving around for a bit and checking out some of the surrounding islands, we stopped on a small island with a restaurant (one-room kitchen with outdoor seating).  They had some cute swings and hammocks set up, and a few of us went swimming for a bit (here's to hoping I didn't have a run-in with schisto.

And, there it is. Short and sweet.  We're hanging out with more AMU kids tomorrow morning, bright and early, and I'll aim to have another entry up tomorrow night or Tuesday.