DAY SEVEN
Wednesday, august 19, 2026
kayaking, coffee, and the ROAD TO THE VOLCANOES
This morning, our activity was kayaking across Lake Kivu to visit a fishing village. The lake was beautifully smooth, though it was starting to drizzle a bit. Not deterred, we gathered on the beach in front of our resort to get a debrief from Renson, who was particularly excited about all of this as an avid kayaker. We got a quick lesson, he paired us to the right kayaks, and we were off and paddling.
Renson had told us the day before that there was a 50/50 chance of capsizing, so I didn’t want to risk it with my phone not having a waterproof cover and didn’t bring mine. Though in hindsight the kayaking was really smooth and I didn’t feel like there was any chance I would’ve tipped. This was more or less a first for me outside of trying a plastic kayak at camp as a child, and I really enjoyed it!
Nuria and Vanessa opted to take a boat across, so we were grateful to have these photos from them!
Eventually, we reached our fishing village destination on a nearby shore of the lake. In Lake Kivu they mainly catch tilapia and isambaza, a local type of sardine that we had seen on a lot of menus, but unfortunately it was the off-season so it was a more of a quick friendly meet & greet with the locals versus seeing their unique method in practice. Also unfortunately, the rain had been quickly picking up and it started pouring almost as soon as we got on shore. So we took shelter in the nearby hut, while Renson arranged for us to get back across the lake by boat rather than kayaking back through the downpour.
As we had grown accustomed to in Rwanda, the kids were fascinated with us as muzungos.
Photo by Zhining
Back at the resort, we gathered to walk to a nearby coffee plantation for a tour.
Rwanda is known for their Arabica coffee crops, and this region on Lake Kivu is particularly known for the production. So we visited Boneza Coffee and met with [name] who walked us through how coffee here is grown, and how the “cherries” are sorted, pulped, fermented, washed & dried, roasted, and prepared for export.
After learning about the process, we sat down to a tasting, enjoying the medium and medium-dark roasts, along with some local honey,
We then headed back to the resort to gather our belongings, officially check out, and settle in on the boats for a long ride across the lake.
Our next and final stop on the tour was Volcanoes National Park, a pretty significant drive to the northeast of the country. Because of both traffic issues and needing to stay away from the Congo border, we started with a 2-hour boat ride (to skip the roads), followed by getting on our bus for a very winding drive through the Rwanda scenery to get to our next lodge.
Spotted lots of cormorants along the way!
We also passed an example of one of the fishing setups, where three boats are connected to each other with poles. (Used when in season.)
After a relaxing boat ride (and our boat enjoying some collective dj-ing with a bluetooth speaker), we reached land and got on the bus, soon stopping at a roadside restaurant for lunch and a break. The food was good here (I got a burger, forgot to take a picture), and a lot of us were excited to see Coke Zero back on the menu after a few stop without it haha. Some people picked up some snacks for the road as well.
This was a particularly long drive on one of the most zigzag roads I’ve ever been on. I’m lucky to have had my prescription motion sickness patch, because without it this would’ve been a miserable drive. I was hoping to edit some photos, but not falling over in the seat with every curve took some active core strength, and it was too hard to do both at once! Eventually, to pass the time, we played a game of privately sending Renson both our favorite song and a song we think is really catchy, and had fun trying to guess who had picked what.
We did pass some beautiful Rwandan scenery here. It was hard to capture out the window, but here’s one blurry shot for memory’s sake.
Finally we made it to Ingagi Park View Lodge, our home for the next two nights. We were all pretty beat at that point, and had an early morning wakeup the next day, so had a quick buffet dinner and intro to the place before getting our rooms and settling in for the night.
Each room was its own little cabin, each named after a gorilla family. Mine was Agashya! And they were really beautiful. During dinner, the staff also set up a fire in the room for warmth and coziness that was waiting for us when we checked in, and stuck a warm water bottle “bush baby” in the bed as well. It was dark out at this point, so I knew I’d take some pictures of the beautiful grounds in the light over the next couple of days. For now, I wanted to get a good night’s sleep to prepare for the next two very active days.
