Rwanda: Gorilla Trekking

Gorilla Trekking is one of the main tourist attractions in Rwanda.  The country is home to several families of endangered mountain gorillas.  There are seven different gorilla families, all of which live in Volcanos National Park, in the north of the country.  Access to the gorillas is limited - each family is visited by eight people each day, which means only 56 permits are issued per day.  Permits are expensive, and you only get to spend an hour with the gorillas - but the experience is beyond compare.  Also, most of the money goes directly into conservation for the gorillas and the surrounding communities.

Everyone who holds a permit meets at the base of Volcanos National Park at 7am on the day of the trek.  The “park rangers” then split the people into groups (one group for each gorilla family) and you get a briefing about the particular family you are going to see.  They tell you the names of the gorillas and a general overview of the family - how many silverbacks, juveniles, and babies there are.  Then, it’s back into the vehicles for a drive to your hike start point.  Volcanos National park has several mountains, and the gorilla families are spread across them, which means that the groups going to each family do different hikes.

Once you get to the hike launch point, you have to walk through fields to get to the forest.  There is a big “buffalo wall” surrounding the jungle - this is to keep farm animals out and the jungle animals in.  Once you cross into the forest, how long you have to walk to find the gorillas is anyone’s guess - could be 20 minutes, could be 3 hours.  It all depends on where the gorilla family decided to nest the night before.  The rangers have a system though - there are people that stay near the gorillas from 7am through 7pm (when they nest for the evening) so the rangers know exactly where they are leading you.

Seeing the gorillas was incredible - you are literally 2-3 feet away from these amazing creatures.  They are so human in their movements!  They really can’t be bothered that they are being observed at such close range by people (as you can see from the pictures).  One of the silverbacks actually got up and walked right through the middle of our group!  Interestingly, the gorillas also do not drink water - the plants that they eat resemble celery...and there is a large amount of water contained in the plant.  Our guide actually let us try some - I can safely say that I do not like gorilla food!  

All in all, I have to say that the gorilla trekking has been the best thing I’ve done in Africa so far.  The pictures really show it all.

These pictures are of the scenery on our drive north to the city of Ruhengeri, which is the town that the gorilla treks leave from.  Rwanda is such a beautiful country - rolling hills, terraces with farms, small houses - it's definitely what you think of when you picture the "romantic" Africa.

This is Volcanos National Park - it is a rain forest, so the clouds you see in the pictures are quite normal.  There are three dormant volcanos in the park - this is also where Dian Fossey lived and worked!

  

Here we are at the trekking meeting point - this is right before the rangers split you up into groups and assign you your gorilla family!

The name of our gorilla family was Kwitonda (named for the silverback in the group, Kwitonda).  Kwitonda is the second oldest gorilla - almost 40 years old!  Apparently, the gorillas can live to be up to 55 years old!

Here we are walking through the fields to the forest, and crossing the buffalo fence to be in the forest proper!  The vegetation was very thick - we only had a 30 minute walk to find the gorillas, but it was definitely strenuous, thus the walking sticks!

Now it was time for the main event - the gorillas!!!

This silverback walked right through the middle of our group - we could have reached out and touched him!

 T

his was the baby of our group - there was only one true baby in the family, and we just got a quick glimpse of him - I was lucky to get the shot!

This big guy is Kwitonda, the number one male of the group - he's huge!!

Here we are with our guide at the conclusion of the hike - we got certificates for finishing!  Notice how my certificate is upside down...typical.  Sigh LOL.

After our trek, we went to a nearby ex-poacher's village.  These are people who used to poach animals (both gorillas and other animals) in the jungle.  The government got them to stop, b/c the gorillas are Rwanda's main source of tourist income.  They encouraged the poaches to set up a cultural village, where they demonstrate Rwandan traditions.  They had us dress up as the "queen" (that was me), the "princess" (that was Jill) and the "queen's advisor" (that was Vicky...who couldn't figure out how she got such a boring role haha.  They performed lots of dances - all inside, because of the rain - it was very entertaining...and I even got to do a little dancing myself!

These kids mugged for the camera at the end of our hike - they really enjoyed posing!