Parc National des Volcans: Eastern Mountain Gorillas

Describing our encounter with Rwanda's eastern mountain gorillas is a difficult task. The pictures and video will probably do a better job, but even they will only scratch the surface. It's not that I couldn't tell you exactly what hapenned, or describe how everything looked, It's that I don't have the skill to describe the sense of the experience adequately. I had a similar problem trying to describe the safari. The experience is so special, and so far from anything I've ever experienced before, that I find myself at a loss for words. In the end it's really just getting close to wild animals, but it is really so much more than that.
  

There are only approximately 700 eastern mountain gorillas left in the world. Approximately half are located in Bwindi Impenetrable Forrest in Uganda, and the other half are located in the Virunga range which consists of a string of volcanoes that straddle the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We would be doing our gorilla trek in the Rwandan part of the Virunga range on a Volcano called Bisoke. 

Rwanda's rolling hills

The day started off at the park ranger station, where we were broken up into groups of 8, assigned a gorilla family and instructed on some rules. Don't sneeze or cough near the gorillas, they are susceptible to human diseases, don't point at the gorillas, they could take this as a sign of hostility, and by all means, keep a 7 metre separation between yourself and the gorillas at all times. Prudent rules, easily followed. We were assigned the Ugenda group (originally studied and habituated by Jane Goodall herself), and at about 8:30 am, jumped in the Land Cruiser for the 25 minute drive through the Rwandan countryside to Mount Bisoke.  

 

Bisoke jungle

The Rwandan countryside is really beautiful. Rwanda's nickname is the land of a thousand hills (mille collines), and this nickname is justified, maybe even understated. Even from high vantage points, you can never see an end to the rolling hills, they seem to go on for ever. Also, as opposed to other East African countries we've been to, Rwanda is very verdant, and it is difficult to find a square inch (aside from soccer fields of course) that is not cultivated. The hilly farmland is the quintessential picture of a pre industrial, idyllic countryside. Small farm plots on terraced hillsides with stone fences, a few cows and goats grazing here and there, and a mud brick, thatch roof huts with wispy plumes of smoke rising from a chimeney interspersed with the multicoloured fields. Truly a beautiful sight. I mention all this because, we had to climb up the side of the volcano through this countryside in order to get to the national park where the gorillas live and are protected. A pleasant, if mildly strenuous walk accompanied by two guides and two members of the armed forces with machine guns (to protect against elephants and buffalo we were told). 

Eastern Mountain Gorillas

The Park itself (called Parc National des Volcans in Rwanda), is surrounded by a thick stone wall and ditch (to protect the farmers below from the buffalo and elephants), and it was only on the other side of the wall that we got the final briefing. Turns out that the gorillas do not respect the 7 metre rule. As a matter of fact, they frequently grab people and drag them around. We were told not to worry, that if that happened the gorillas were "just playing". Also, some gorillas charge groups of humans in order to show them who's boss. They usually stop, but whatever you do we were told, stand your ground and don't run away. Funny that they wait until you're on the other side of the wall to tell you all this. Anyway, with our 5 minute tutorial in gorilla behaviour as our main line of defense, we set off to find our group. 



Brooding silverback

Within the park, the terrain changes quickly. It is truly a jungle. Imagine a wall of vegetation of various types and sizes, all foreign to anything you've ever seen before without a hint of a path and you begin to get an idea. We forced our way through this tangle of flora for another 20 or 30 minutes until we met up with the trackers who told us the gorillas were just ahead. Our guide instructed us to drop our packs and follow him. We were thinking we would be in for another bit of a hike, so we were taken completely by surprise when less than a minute later, we rounded a corner into a clearing, and there they were. I counted 14 Gorillas. Males, females juveniles, babies and, presiding over them all, a massive silverback. 



Charging juvenile

This is where I loose the capacity to adequately describe the experience. Being that close (the gorillas did not in fact respect the 7 metre rule) to these majestic, wild animals, in their habitat, without fences or partitions separating us is beyond my ability to describe. Exhilaration, fear, awe, excitement, joy, all seem to be wrapped into one new emotion, and for the next hour (visits with the gorillas are limited to one hour), you feel like you are a 10 year old again. For the most part they didn't pay us much attention. They went about their business eating, grooming each other and lazing around as if we weren't there. Every once in a while one of them would look at you and make eye contact. Their piercing red eyes, and human faces, would make you ask what they were thinking, and force you to ponder the vagaries of evolution that put us in our respective places. We also had a few mock charges from the juvenile males (teenagers are the same the world over), and I think Colleen found something she likes less than a threatening elephant, although I'm not sure I appreciate how she shoved me in front of the gorilla as she ducked behind me. The hour up, we headed back down the mountain and back to our hotel with another gift from Africa in our hearts and memories. 



Lazy baby

The next day we bused it to Gisenyi, a small resort town on the shores of lake Kivu, which curiously enough is one of only two or three lakes in the world that are succeptible to limnic erruptions - in other words, the lake could blow up. Seriously, look it up. A similar lake in Cameroon blew up in the 80s and killed hundreds of people. The lake was beautiful, but the town turned out to have a bit of a rough edge that we didn't much care for. It is adjacent to the DRC border, was a flashpoint during the genocide and subsequent troubles in the DRC, and I'm not sure that enough time has passed here for friendly tourism. We did meet up with two girls we met on the gorilla trek though and ended up spending a lovely evening with them. Turns out they both live in Kigali. They offered us a ride back and a place to crash in Kigali for a night before our flight back to Dar es Salaam. We took them up on it and had another great day in Kigali.

We are in Dar es Salaam now waiting for our Indian visas (hopefully we can pick them up at the Indian High Commission on Tuesday), and if all else goes well, we should be off for India by the end of next week.

Michael

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania