BLOG Goma and Mt Nyiragongo - Take 2 \Jan 2015

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BLOG Goma and Mt Nyiragongo - Take 2 \Jan 2015

This time it’s with John Mooney – an MCU companion.

So us locals take a mutatu, its John first time in a local taxi and on a boda – that’s the life of an expat with company perks, the long distance mini-buses that jam in the passengers (but only as many as there are seats, including the fold-down ones running down the aisles — unlike Uganda and elsewhere, where bodies are simply jammed in any which way). For a princely fare of Rwanda Francs 2800 (about US$5) the 3-3.5 hour trip was paid for and, right on the nail, the bus left Kigali at 7am. At Gisenyi, the town on the western side of Rwanda situated right by Lake Kivu, we disembarked and found our way to the Rwanda-Congo border.

Walk across the border – the very same guy is there again outside the office at Petite Barrier, asking for health visas!!Ignore him completely!! Forms were filled in, queues were stood in (with plenty of queue-jumper attempts), various bureaucratic huffing’s and puffing’s but absolutely no hassle side. Instead, after plenty of manual transcription of every conceivable detail into a large ledger book had recorded our entry and US$50 visa fee paid.

Collect ICCU mountain climbing visas from ICCU offices at 8.30 and pay $10 for lift to Kibati in ICCU park vehicle.

I did not know at the time but no ICCU tourist visa is stamped into my passport at immigration (at the Petit Border post), 3 days later I would find out very abruptly.

Meet up with our guide at Kibati patrol post. Hire a porter. Climb steadily with several stops, with 2 Swedish guys to overnight hut – weather is overcast. Can’t resist a look at the crater, in daylight. So walk the 20 metres to the jagged crater edge. The rock cliff drops directly below us to a flat plateau 20mtrs below us and a few metres from the cliff base on the plateau the boiling lava lake sits. Clouds are swirling around the crater rim and along with a lot of crater smoke – visibility is disappointing – guide say don’t worry we come back later at night. So we head up to Crater Lake after sunset.  And yes the view is amazing. A dazzling bright red lake of slowly boiling and moving molten rock there below us. It is freezing, wind blowing hard and cold – we are wrapped up but standing stationary on any mountain will quickly cool you down. There is no heat from the lava lake 2200 mtrs below us. The cliff face below us is a sheer drop down to the plateau below and the lava lake and we are sitting right on the edge on very sharp and uncomfortable jagged volcanic rock. This would never be allowed with the over regulated first world!!

 

The 1800°F lava explodes from the lake in geysers, several every minute—25 feet high, 50 feet, bursting into arches of liquid rock morphing from orange to black in midair as they cooled. Bursts of flames light up and as quickly disappear. The lake seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting, rising and falling, its surface level changing several feet in a matter of minutes, spectacular and terrifying at once.

 

Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano with an elevation of 3470 m (11382 ft)^[1] in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Albertine Rift. Nyiragongo is in the Great Rift Valley, where the African continental plate is being wrenched apart, and micro quakes constantly shake the volcano It is located inside Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 20 km (12 mi) north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater is about two kilometers wide and usually contains a lava lake. The crater presently has two distinct cooled lava benches within the crater walls - one at about 3,175 metres (10,417 ft) and a lower one at about 2,975 m (9,760 ft.). Nyiragongo lava lake has at times been the most voluminous known lava lake in recent history. The depth of the lava lake varies considerably. A maximum elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 3,250 m (10,660 ft) prior to the January 1977 eruption - a lake depth of about 600 m (2,000 ft). A recent very low elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 2,700 m (8,900 ft). Nyiragongo and nearby Nyamuragira are together responsible for 40% of Africa's historical volcanic eruptions. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, but was labeled a site in danger in 1994 due to political conflict and poaching.

 

The night is very cold. Shelter is in two A frame donor built huts- recently rebuilt – but already showing signs of lack of up keep.

 

 

Back in Goma the roads were a black dusty mess. Signs of reconstruction and repair appeared everywhere. And the most commonly-used building material: blocks, chunks and the fine gravel all made up from lava rock. Lava rock is so widely used that many of the buildings and almost all of the walls around those buildings are coloured a dull black-grey. The UN and NGO presence is evident everywhere. Armed UN patrols, by appearance mostly Indian and Middle Eastern soldiers, are ubiquitous.

 

So at Petite Barrier crossing, the immigration officer is looking at my passport asking  me how I got into DRC – as I don’t have an entry stamp. I shrugging by shoulders at him - my Mountain permit is in the passport but no immigration stamp – rightfully so he sends me to the entry hut across the road, where I patiently explain my dilemma – and even more patiently (with John ungsting in the background) wait for the officer flips though my passport a few times and eventually stamps me into the country -  so that I can now get out.

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