Lake Kivu ‘Barge Party’ to take place this weekend at Primus Port in Kibuye

KIBUYE’S PRIMUS PORT SET TO HOST LAKE KIVU’S FIRST BARGE PARTY

(Posted 22nd August 2013)

‘We are doing such festivals and location specific activities to promote domestic tourism to the less visited sites in Rwanda and taking this boat party to Kibuye will encourage others to come up with their own ideas’ said a regular source from Kigali when passing the information that the lakeside town of Kibuye will be the host for Lake Kivu’s first ever boat, or barge party.

Lake Kivu, along which on the Rwandan side the Congo Nile Trail has broken new ground in East Africa to bring tourists to this scenic part of the country, where they can over a distance of 224 kilometres hike, bike, boat and 4×4 the trail, has long been one of East Africa’s hidden gems, deserving much greater publicity and visitor numbers.

The main town of Gisenyi, home to Serena Hotels’ westernmost property in East Africa, the Lake Kivu Serena, sees more traffic due to the border vicinity of Goma in the Congo DR but other parts along the lake could well do with more visitors, Kibuye as well as Kamembe, where presently Air Rwanda flies daily to using their Embraer Dash 8 aircraft. ‘You know of course the islands one can visit from Kibuye, or the forest park of Nyungwe, or Gishwati which is a national forest reserve. We have refined our coffee and tea tours to show visitors how tea and coffee are grown and processed before we invite them to taste the special flavour only Rwandan tea and coffee have. There are now many accommodation facilities along the lake from Gisenyi to Kamembe and those cater for any budget. The barge party this weekend hopefully will bring a lot of visitors from Kigali and maybe even from outside Rwanda to Kibuye. While there our visitors can see Napoleon Island or Amahoro Island the following day before returning home’.

Don’t I wish to be back on the shores of Lake Kivu for this weekend, a wish sadly not granted as duty requires my presence at the shores of Lake Victoria. Watch this space.