Rachel Sarah Stoeter wins £200 for her account of a trip through the Nyungwe rainforest in Rwanda with an enthusiastic guide

You must watch out for fire ants, our local guide says. I look at the others in our party – the German mum and daughter have fold-up walking sticks, boots, and thick socks. The family of four – two teenage children – have slick rain jackets and each parent carries a backpack.

I am in skinny jeans and laced slip-on shoes, which I now imagine a fire ant being able to bite right through. My friend stretches the bottom of her tights to tuck under her heels in a feeble attempt at protecting her ankles. We aren’t quite prepared for this rainforest walk.

Rain forests are not renowned for their dry conditions Credit: Guenter Guni/guenterguni

Our last-minute decision to detour on the way back to Kigali in Rwanda and spend two nights at the Nyungwe rainforest seemed like such a good idea: it would save hours on driving and we’d get a guided walk through the rainforest. So what if we’d left the food, jackets, and proper shoes in Kigali?

In yesterday’s underwear and shivering in the mountain air, about to plunge into a rainforest of fire ants, I curse our spontaneity

Now, in yesterday’s underwear and shivering in the mountain air, about to plunge into a rainforest of fire ants, I curse our spontaneity.

“It’s about an hour and a half to the waterfall,” our guide chirps as he leads us on a stony road through some tea plantations and we scramble sideways to a path that winds down into moss-covered vegetation. The air is damp and quiet, and I feel like I am intruding on the trees.

Our guide becomes the proud leader and we are ignorant children; over the next four hours, he stops to point out tiny frogs and mushrooms, gives lectures on the flora, and demands we rest at a conveniently placed bench along the way. I find myself trying to be impressive and show him some shiny, black worms. He shrugs: “those are just worms.”

He tells us the difference between the Colobus and Mountain monkeys that rustle in branches, looking pleased as the prepared tourists click cameras at the trees. At one point, he takes the German lady’s fancy DSLR – obviously feeling that she isn’t getting the right shots – and snaps his own pictures of the monkeys, grinning.

On reaching the waterfall, he has us pose in its spray and lays his rain jacket down for the family to sit on so he can get a photo of them in front of the root-beer-like liquid.

Rwanda's rain forests are home to the black and white colobus monkey Credit: This content is subject to copyright./Ariadne Van Zandbergen

Walking back is harder; it’s uphill and we’re tired, but he cheers us from behind, gallantly bringing up the rear until we emerge into the sun and shake ourselves back into reality. One of the backpack-carrying parents shares homemade biscuits. Back at our guesthouse, having borrowed glasses and a corkscrew from the staff, my friend and I sit drinking over-priced wine we found in a little store.

“To our guide!” I say – whose name we ashamedly can’t remember – “For restoring our faith in spontaneity!”

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