On my day off, I decided to explore the town of Kamembe, located on the edge of Lake Kivu. Now if you know your geography of these region, you’ll know that Lake Kivu is the border between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. So our first stop in town was the border to DRC. As you can see below – the border is just a bridge with people wandering back and forth. Apparently a lot of people cross everyday to sell or buy supplies in the other country. However, I don’t think they would be very happy if I decided to walk across – so I stayed safely on the Rwanda side.
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Bridge over to Congo
Next objective, put my feet into Lake Kivu (much too cold for swimming but not for dangling my feet into the water!). We visited a hotel down by the water and took in the view of the massive lake, as well as of the houses along the Rwandan and Congo sides of the lake. In addition, there were many people in canoes in the lake pulling in their fishing nets – it looked like very hard work! |
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| Putting my feet into the lake |
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| View of Lake Kivu |
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| Island with Congo in the distance |
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| Lake Kivu |
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| Fishing boats |
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| Fishing Boat |
Kamembe is also the closest town to where I live that has a supermarket, so we are able to buy a lot of food here that we can’t get in the village by the research station. It is even possible to buy Corn Flakes, Pringles, and Cadbury chocolate bars!
