Safari Birthday at Akagera

Fun with Stu and Clark

On Friday, September 15th, Mary Hope turned 6 big years old! On the same day, we made our first big adventure to Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda. What a birthday treat.

When we made Mary Hope’s purple, pink and blue birthday cake two nights prior (above), little did we know that on her REAL birthday night she would have a super special surprise cake along with dancing and singing from the awesome servers and staff at the Karenge Bush Camp inside Akagera National Park. I would highly recommend this experience to anyone traveling to Akagera or Rwanda. (Dinner service below had multiple courses, by candlelight.).

I was so relieved and excited to see their flashlights raised high on Friday night to show us the way into the camp. Especially after the fiasco with Clark, Stu, and their two ornery rhino buds.

Wait, what was that? Who are Clark and Stu and what do they have to do with rhinos? Well, Clark and Stu are a couple of rhinos who decided to linger with us a bit longer than we desired on that Friday evening as we drove through Akagera to get to the campsite on the first night. The trip began smoothly with Matt and Anna doing an amazing job at preparing supplies for camping and keeping us on track to arrive at the North gate of Akagera by about 4:15pm.

After waiting about 45 minutes on the guards to arrive to open the gate, we were on our way to look for animals and enjoy the dinner and camp adventure for that night. We spotted a few antelope and got excited. Then came our first big sighting - one of the big 5 of safari go-er’s - the white rhino. Not just one, but FOUR white rhino together in a little rhino family. “Awww, how cool!” I said. About 45 minutes later, I was not saying that anymore!

We realized that these rhinos were traveling in the same direction on the same dirt road that we wanted to travel on. And after a while, two of them made it clear that they did not want us cramping their style by following them so closely. They turned around and started walking toward us, appearing a little annoyed. I was envisioning what Matt’s white landcruiser may look like with a rhino horn hole in the front of it. But thankfully, things simmered down and those two rascals went on their way. After 10 seconds of excitement that we could now move on to the camp (who was waiting on us to make dinner as we were not supposed to be driving at night) we returned to find two of the original rhino gang, still walking on the road ever so slowly. These two Thom lovingly named Clark and Stu. We watched their rhino bottoms for about 45 minutes…

and rejoiced when we could turn off the road to make it to our destination.

This first night was almost a “glamping” experience as the tents were large and had cot-like beds that were made up with linens. There were towels and soap for the nice outdoor shower. Each tent had a toilet and shower that faced toward a valley with a beautiful view - just the perfect thing to watch as you use the bathroom. The dinner and breakfast were amazing, and the customer service was superb. We had a beautiful dinner on Friday night and were surprised by the cake and songs that came from the staff for Mary Hope.

We awoke before sunrise to start the safari on Saturday, and immediately saw a group of lions within just a few minutes of driving. (The only photo I could find is below:)

This was followed by many other animals along the way: zebras, Cape buffalo (definitely win the award for most hilarious expression when looking at humans), rhino (again), and most of the 11 different types of antelope in Akagera. We had the whole experience with the safari guides Matt and Anna, giving us information about everything from bird species to animal behavior.

We had the amazing blessing of seeing so many amazing creatures that God has made. Here we will give summaries of each kid’s favorite:

Mary Hope: The leopard was her favorite animal, followed closely by the giraffe, or in Kinyarwanda, something pronounced like “ah-mah-shum-bah-sham-bah”. They ate so slowly and meticulously, grabbing leaves from around thick acacia tree thorns.

Hannah Joy: As of tonight (two weeks later), she remembers the experience with the cows before we drove into the park the best, when we stood outside and waited on the gate to open, ha! Here’s a photo of Anna and JV as we waited:

I think Hannah’s next best favorite was the lion we saw on the first morning there. She liked the first night’s tents and camping (and food) the best.

John Valor: He says he likes the baboons the best, especially when the babies rode on the back of the mom to run across the road. He also liked the elephants…and hippos. Hippos like to stand in the water with only their eyes and ears above the water and then intermittently come up and open their mouths really wide to threaten you, I think? For all of the rest of us, the best JV memory is us saying, “hey, look at ____!” and him immediately saying, “whey-uh?” (“where?” in a 4 year old voice). See below for hippos hiding in the water.

The second night was more like “real” camping - except there was a nice snack bar with a kitchen staff who made us dinner and breakfast. What I mean by “real” is that tents were involved with an air mattress and all of the Savages smashed into one tiny space with only a few flashlights. After seeing a leopard (wow!) just at sunset on Saturday night and looking for elephants (we didn’t spot them until Sunday morning), we got back for dinner and then immediately got ready for bed in the tent. The campsite was not far from the edge of the lake where some hippos are known to stay. (Intermittently you could hear them grunting which sounded like pigs). The kids were going bananas in the tent and I was getting frustrated. I’m sure all of the other campers loved hearing my pleas and rants to get them to hush and calm down.

Once we settled down, the tent’s layout was me and the kids on one big air mattress and Thom on a small air mat on the side of the tent. Actually, Mary Hope took over the air mat and Thom ended up soon on the air mattress with 3 more of us. About 10 minutes into this configuration everyone was asleep…except for me. I tried to get comfortable and ignore the sounds of animals and mosquitoes coming from through the tent wall which I was smashed against.

I think we had 20 different configurations of human bodies throughout the night in that tent that a time-lapse video would reveal and bring much laughter to all of us. I felt like I was awake for the majority of that night. One moment in particular was when John V. ended up off the mattress at the door of the tent in the shoe pile and I tried to drag him back onto the mattress, accidentally hitting Mary Hope’s head leading to screams and cries at 1:45am. I know that had to wake up some hippos.

This photo is of lunch on Saturday - packed nicely from the staff at Karenge Bush Camp for us to eat at the second night’s campsite. We ate at this same place on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

What a blessing to be able to experience this with some great friends and guides. I hope to go again - maybe with some of you reading this who can come in the future. But JV will remind you - watch out for Clark and Stu! And Hannah highly recommends the nice tents. Thanks to Matt and Anna for enduring many renditions of Hakuna Matata and lots of kid time to bring us some awesome memories.