Gorillas in Rwanda

Michelle's been talking about visiting the gorillas in Rwanda since the day we arrived in Africa. She missed her chance to go with Tyronza in 2008 when there wasn't space available. In early January, we got the opportunity to go to Rwanda again and this time we succeeded in making a booking.

On 16th January, Michelle, Gilbert (our Rwandan friend...see posts from April 2007) and I took the bus to Ruhengeri. About a 2 hour drive. We spent the night near volcanoes national park (virunga mountains). In the morning we would hike to see the gorillas.

At 6am we set off for the meeting point. We got assigned to groups and the team of guides decided which gorilla family we'd visit. There were 7 in our group with an average age of 30. That made us the most "fit" group I guess. They said we would hike to the Susa family, the biggest family which also came with the longest hike. The family has 3 silverbacks (biggest males), the only set of twins, and a baby that's only weeks old.



"Did you see that guy in the orange shirt... He looks very strong."



People start jumping into vehicles. We assumed that we'd drive a little bit to the trail head. We hop in the back of a pick up truck. The short drive ended up to be an hour and a half of bumpy roads. Not comfortable and cold.



We get to the starting point and size up the task ahead. We'd hike for 2 and a half hours so we knew that ahead of time. What that really meant...we had no clue. This picture doesn't do justice to the size of the mountain. We hiked to the top and I wish I knew the elevation.

The first 20 minutes is through farmland. The farmland is so different than Zambia. The ground is lush and people work hard tending to their fields. We made it to the entry point of the park. They've build an incredibly long wall that runs all the way to the Uganda border (The park falls into 3 countries: Rwanda, Uganda, Congo). My dad is real proud a wall he built in front of his house in Joliet. I'm sure he'd be impressed with this one that runs for miles. On the other side of the wall is a bamboo jungle. We start walking up hill. It's tough to get good footing as the ground slips away. I tried to turn down the walking stick, but would not have made it to the top without it.



Michelle at the entrance to the park...

There a trackers that go out in the morning and find the area which the gorillas nested the night before. The gorillas will head out in the morning and find a new place to spend the day. They don't take established trails, so we didn't take normal hiking trails either. Notice the trail that leads from us to the couple ahead of us. We forged ahead.



Picture Michelle and I whistling and enjoying the hike. Now picture us as we really were...swearing and threatening to turn around. I fell more than anyone else. I don't have a good reason for that. Michelle noticed how hard it was to breathe at the base of the hill before we started climbing. As we went up it got even harder. And the hill was a gradual climb so we always thought we were nearing the top. Every crest provided a new challenge.

Then we saw poo.



At this point we had been hiking for almost 3 hours and I've never been more happy to nearly step in crap. It meant we were close.

We got to a point where we all stopped. The two guys that were out ahead of us said the gorillas were about 100 yards away. We put down our bags... the gorillas would be curious to know what we were carrying. We also left our walking sticks which are threatening to them. We'd stick close to the guide and listen to his instructions. We were to told to stay 7 meters from them but if they walked closer to us...stand still. We hiked on.

The first gorilla that we saw was an adolescent in a tree. Mix the exhaustion of the hike with the such an unbelievably beautiful site and it brings tears to your eyes. Michelle wept. I got choked up and didn't manage to get a shot of that one. We walked a bit further and came up on the biggest silverback. I can't describe how massive he was. His head alone was just huge. He didn't pay us much mind. He is the leader of the family and generally not threatened by any of us.




As we stand there, we hear another gorilla coming toward us. The guide quietly explains that this is another silverback. He's the smallest of the 3 silverbacks, which means he never gets the girls. I can't imagine he's too happy about that. I'm nervous. I take about 3 steps back and he comes closer. He's standing right where I was. I start taking a video.




He starts to move so he is facing me. The video ends. It brought back memories of a family trip to Yellowstone when I ran from an elk because I was certain it was going to attack me. I thought this guy might attack me but I didn't run. He hung out by us for a little while and then stood up, pounded his chest, and walked off. When he pounded his chest it was a deep almost booming sound.


Gilbert and the silverback before walked off.


For the next 50 minutes we just walked amongst the family.


Mother and child




Got a toothpick? Check out the big mama (furthest from us).

This is the baby that they told us about. Less than two months old. The mother was just huge.




This is one of the most playful toddlers. She would hang out by us and then roll backwards down the hill...come back up and do it all again.


I have about 100 more pictures but don't have time to get them all up here. The hour went fast and we started back down the hill. We figured that the walk down would be much easier than coming up but we were already beat. It was tough. Gilbert and I stopped in this hollowed out tree.

Coming out of the bamboo forest. Somehow the trip down took almost as long as the trip up. I'm not sure how that happened.



Michelle with more normal wildlife. But these sheep had real rough sounding voices. We got back into the bed of the truck and took the 90 minute trip back to town. The bed of the truck was fine with 4 on the way there...but we were 7 people on the way back. We got back to town and jumped into a bus for the 2 hour trip back to Kigali. Slept for a couple hours and went to the airport to catch 3am flight to Nairobi. We arrived home at 11am. Exhausted.