For any of you who haven't been following along with my friend Beth's journals of her recent trip to Rwanda, you can read the previous blog entries here:
Rwanda #1Rwanda #2Rwanda #3Rwanda #4This entry (#5) is about Beth's journey into the mist-- gorillas in the mist, to be exact :) Oh, who am I kidding. Most of you are probably too
young to have any idea what that is...
Rwanda is famous for the mountain gorillas that live in the Virunga volcano forests of the northwest. There are six volcanoes in this range and gorilla families groups are scattered from the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Rwanda and all the way to Uganda. Most people in the western world know of Rwanda’s mountain gorillas through Dian Fossey’s work and the movie about her efforts, Gorilla’s in the Mist. As of a 2010 census there were believed to be 480 mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Virunga, which is a 26.3% increase from the census seven years prior. They do not survive in captivity so to see them you must come to their home.
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| School Children Along the Way |
The mountain gorillas live in family groups with a dominant male who is the leader of the family. Males over the age of 12 begin to get a saddle of silver hair on their backs, which is where the term silverback gorilla comes from. The younger adult males are called blackbacks. The females are usually about half the size of an adult male and their heads are a bit less conical in shape but each gorilla has a completely unique nose print. On average a full grown male is 6’3” (1.9m) tall with an arm span of 7’7” (2.3m) and weighs 490 lbs. (266kg). Amazingly these enormous animals are quite peaceful and gentle. If two families meet they will fight for superiority but they have no natural predator other than humans through the diseases we carry and poachers. The susceptibility to human disease comes from the fact that their DNA is 97% like ours and therefore they can catch viruses and infections just like us.
My trek to spend an hour with the mountain gorillas was an adventure I will never forget. There were a series of obstacles the first being the price for foreigners to get a gorilla trekking permit. It is not cheap and it’s going up again in September. I chose to work with a tour company, Songa Africa, who coordinated a driver/guide and my hotel accommodations for me. While this also adds to the price, for me it was great to have experts making sure my experience was well coordinated.
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| View from my cabin at the lodge |
My driver/guide, Isaac, arrived at my hotel in the morning with a heavy-duty four-wheel drive vehicle. This type of vehicle proves important later on the “roads” to get to the base of the climb and to the lodge. Isaac calls the experience on these roads “an African massage.” Yes, Isaac has a great sense of humor. Through the countryside he would gladly stop so I could take photos and his ability to translate was nice for being able to talk with local kids that always show up when a stranger is around. It is important that foreigners not encourage the begging that children have learned to do. The Rwandan government really is developing tourism and doesn’t want the culture of begging to become something the country is known for. It was fun to watch Isaac speak with the children and correct their behavior. In Rwanda it is still common for “the village” to raise the children so correcting someone else’s child is normal.
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| Volcano they call "Grandpa's Teeth" |
The lodge they booked me in was lovely. Each guest has their own private cottage and the view of the volcanoes is stunning! The facility is eco-friendly so they only have power certain times of day and in the evening a young man comes and builds a fire in the cottage fireplace for warmth as it gets quite cold at night. At dinner that evening I met the most wonderful couple from South Africa who were also going on the trek the next day. This is one of the things I truly love about traveling alone. It always seems some nice person sees you by yourself and says hello and the next thing you know you’ve found a new friend. Staying open to possibilities can lead in such fun directions.
Early the next morning we were all up and going. The first stop is the national park offices where the trekking groups are formed and you find out which family group you are going to see. They only allow eight guests per group and each family group can only have contact with guests for one hour in a day and not every single day. There are eight family groups in this part of the Virungas that tourists are allowed to trek to. I had asked for a short to mid-length trek and didn’t care which family I saw because I didn’t know anything about them. My group was made up of a young couple from Australia, two ladies from Germany, a couple my age from the US and their friend who is Ugandan/Rwandese. Our guide was Placid and he would prove to be my hero along with the porter I hired to carry my pack named Joseph. It is interesting to note that the porters are mostly ex-poachers who now make their living in the tourism that surrounds the gorillas.
Before we left, Placid told us about the family we would be tracking. Susa Family is the largest of the family groups with 33 members and the head silverback, Kurira (koo-ree’-rah), is 36 years old. There are two other silverbacks in the family, Kurira’s brother, Igisha (Ee-gee’-sha), and his son, Kiki (kee’-kee). Also in this family are two sets of twins. One set is 5 years old and the other is 6 months old. This should be fun!! We all got into our vehicles and were off for the one-hour drive to get to the starting point. While we are driving the trackers who work with Susa Family have already headed into the forest to find them. They will be in radio communication with Placid as we climb to tell him which direction to lead us. It is now about 8:30AM and we’re ready to start climbing. Isaac has told me that based on where the family group was yesterday I would most likely be back by lunchtime. Lesson number one don’t believe anything Isaac says! As we begin to walk away I notice that the porters all have machetes in their hands, which they will use quite skillfully to cut through the dense vegetation of the forest. For a brief moment I thought of these men as possible killers during the genocide wielding these weapons…such an eerie thought.
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| My walking stick gorilla and the dense vegetation |
Now comes obstacles number two thru four. #2-I normally live at sea level and our climb begins around 8,530’ (2600m) and will take us to about 11,811’(3600m) so the air is getting thinner all the time. #3 – The German ladies are really good climbers and set the pace for the first hour which is way more than I can handle, I am officially in over my head and they move me to the front of the line with Placid so I now set the pace. #4 – This climbing is far harder than I expected (as a note here I learned afterwards that Susa Family is the hardest family to trek) and I now know I need to do more aerobic exercise.
At this point we are a couple hours into the climb. We have left the dusty, lava rock area of the potato fields and we are now in the dense vegetation of the forest. At times we stop so I can catch my breath and get my heart back to a point where is doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode out of my chest. At the starting point we were all offered walking sticks and I’m so glad I took one. That stick with a gorilla carved on top, Placid holding my hand to pull me up at times, the encouragement of the couple from the US and their friend and numerous conversations with God were what got me through. Finally, around 1pm Placid got word from the trackers that they had made contact with the family group. So, for 5 hours we have been tracking the trackers who were tracking the family and climbing, I mean REALLY climbing, and now we officially know what our destination is.
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| The teenager and Kiki, relaxing |
Around 2pm we stop to rest and leave our belongings, everything except cameras, with the porters who do not go in to see the family with us and then after almost six long hours…. GORILLAS!!!!!! Suddenly all the agony seems worth it. These animals are incredible and they are right there! The first thing I see is the mama gorilla with the baby twins. I didn’t get a photo because she scooted them away too quickly. It is not uncommon for the babies to try to come right up to humans out of curiosity but the grown ups usually make a grunt that tells them to get back or they push them out of sight. Next was the big man himself, Kurira, beautiful and strong. The trackers and guides kept making this low throat growl kind of noise, which we were told is how they say hello and indicate respect to the family. Kurira let out a loud noise that startled the eight of us and then moved quickly away. It seemed his way of saying, all right, have your fun but I’m outta here. The gorillas are quite smart and seem to know the routine when tourists show up. Placid told me they actually know the difference between the uniforms that the guides wear and the clothes the tourists have on so if they are irritated they are more likely to take it out on a guide than a tourist.
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| The one that fell out of the tree |
When we first arrived they were still in feeding mode so they were moving quite a bit and we moved with them. They are mostly looking for bamboo and apparently if they eat too much of it they can become intoxicated. Then for the last 30 minutes or so they were just relaxing and we stood in an area with 8 or so gorillas all just hanging out including Kiki, the youngest of the silverbacks. We are so close to some of the gorillas that I swear I could have reached out and touched them. I could have stayed with these guys all day. There were two young gorillas down to my left that kept fighting like siblings in the back seat of the car on a long road trip. Then there was a teenager laying out above them who would egg them on every so often. One young gorilla had climbed a tree to get to some fruit and then was just relaxing there and at some point got too relaxed and actually fell out of the tree. When our time was up none of us wanted to go. How amazing to be the trackers who always work with the same family and really know them. I will never forget this hour of my life. But the adventure isn’t over.
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| Me & my heroes, Placid on my right, Joseph on my left |
Obstacle number five, the hike down the mountain, this actually went pretty well right up until the very end. The potato field part of the hike is a bit dangerous because you are on old lava fields and there’s lots of loose rock and slippery dust. You really have to watch where you’re stepping and keeping a solid footing proves challenging. So much so that just a few minutes from the car I took a pretty bad fall. Nothing was broken, nothing bleeding but definitely shaken and several big bruises. Back at the car we all said our good-byes. So strange to share such an incredible moment with people you’ll most likely never see again. Safely back in the car almost nine hours after the climb began I talked a mile a minute about the day. Isaac has trekked to all the family groups and was great about listening to my stories of the day and my harassing him about sending me on such a hard climb but as he reminded me, I made it and I will always carry this experience with me.
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| The beautiful reward at the end of the day |
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