Seeing this article "Regard de singes, folie des hommes" on Le Monde website about a photo book (I obviously ordered it immediately) on mountain gorillas, I remembered my own unforgettable encounter with these gorgeous animals in Rwanda a few months ago. As a consequence, the need to share this experience here grew stronger.
A couple of years ago for some forgotten reason I got obsessed about mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), but at the same time I thought that seeing them in the wild was just an unachievable dream (mostly for financial reasons). However, when I signed up for a scout camp in Burundi I immediately knew that I wouldn't travel that far in Africa without a little trip to the Virunga mountains on the border of Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) and Uganda. Although this trip ruined my finances, this is exactly why I've been saving money in the past. Compared to the experience, 500 dollars for a gorilla permit was little money.
I prepared myself for this trip by watching the excellent film from the 1980s "Gorillas in the Mist" with Sigourney Weaver (see trailer of the film above). It tells the real story of the primatologist Dr. Dian Fossey who studied mountain gorillas in the Virungas and also played a significant role in saving the species from illegal poaching and likely extinction. Crying my eyes off with the film, I started being afraid that I have too high expectations for my own gorilla tracking experience. But here's what happened and how I lost my heart to our gorilla cousins.
The road from the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, to the village of Kinigi next to the Parc National des Volcans was surprisingly good and my driver and guide Ahmed with whom I travelled for one week was used to the sudden curves and misty mountain air. On the road, I also realized that the country is aptly called "le pays des milles collines", or the land of a thousand hills. Unfortunately, many of the hills are bald and cultivated, as almost all the land in this small country is used to support its population of around 10 million (one of the most densely populated places on earth!). (The hills continue on the other side of the border in Burundi where it seemed much greener in my opinion - hmm, grass is greener on the other side?)
By the way, it can be quite scary to organise such an expensive trip and pay a very high deposit beforehand to an unknown agency. Therefore, I can warmly recommend the trustworthy agency I used for part of my trip: AA Safaris and Tours. They were very helpful and responded to all my queries promptly (vegetarian food, modified itinerary, new departure date etc.). We also had good time with Ahmed on the road, even though half of the time I couldn't really understand what he was saying. In his African way, he arranged everything really well (though we had some disagreement about punctuality) and even at the moments of little despair he made it all work out. My all-inclusive 7-day tour in Rwanda and Uganda with budget accommodation cost 3,590 US dollars and though I'm still living on credit because of this trip, it was worth it.
On my first day in the national park I went for a shorter trek to see golden monkeys (see a photo above), an endemic and endangered primate living only in the Virunga mountains, a mountain range comprised of 5 volcanoes (the highest is Karisimbi reaching around 4500 m) in North-Western Rwanda. Recently this rare species has become a new tourist attraction after a long habituation precess whereby monkeys become more familiar with humans. As with the gorillas, this can help save the species from extinction when their economic value becomes evident for the local communities. It was great to observe these cute and playful animals, but I must confess that I was already thinking of the gorillas, which were on my programme the next day.
Visitors can spend time with one of the seven different habituated gorilla families in the Parc National des Volcans. Other places to see mountain gorillas are Uganda and RDC. In order to avoid bothering the animals too much, there is a limit of 8 tourists per gorilla family, equalling to total of 56 tourists per day in the park. This means that you need to book your gorilla permit in advance, especially in the peak season of July-August. The most famous group is the Susa group, which Dian Fossey studied; due to this fame this is also the group all the tourists want to see. My guess is that the experience is wonderful with any of the families, while the trekking time can vary depending on how far the group has moved up in the mountains.
On the morning of the trek, at 7 am the tourists assemble at the headquarters of the park. There was an amazing atmosphere of expectation and excitement. We were waiting for our guides to go through the hassle of registration and do their best to get their protégés in the Susa group. A local dance group was performing traditional dances (see above) and we took photos, drank tea and behaved like children on Christmas Eve. Older tourists wore their impeccable Indiana Jones gear; and all the hassle with the ankle protections against angry ants and stinging nettle seemed a bit exaggerated to me (I rolled my socks up and this was good enough).
I ended up in a group together with some elderly Brits (always excellent travel company with their smooth small talk, polite manners and good mood). In general, most of the people going gorilla tracking seemed to be over 50; I guess the 500 dollars permit puts off younger people travelling with a limited budget.
We were assigned the gorilla family of Hirwa (see above the members of the group), meaning the lucky one. We had two knowledgeable park guides who were constantly in contact with the park rangers tracking the gorillas up in the mountain. The gorillas change their base every night so the park rangers wake up at 4 am to find the family for the tourists and also for their own research.
We first walked through cultivated land and some eucalyptus forests and then arrived to the foot of the misty mountain. The lowest level of the mountain is bamboo forest, also the delicacy of the gorillas. On the way up, we came across huge footprints belonging to elephants, but unfortunately we didn't see any of them. It felt absurd that elephants could walk in the thick forest with steep hills. A park ranger with a rusty machine gun with him was also accompanying us. The gun wasn't against the guerilla groups causing trouble at the RDC side of the Virungas but against aggressive buffaloes. And the gun was certainly not against the gorillas (which are despite the look and intimidating size usually non-aggressive); in fact, I guess the rangers would rather shoot at a tourist than an endangered mountain gorilla. At least I probably would.
I had prepared myself for rain, muddy path, ants and nettles after reading Lonely Planet's description: "Gorilla tracking is no joy ride. The guides can generally find the gorillas within one to four hours of starting out, but this often involves a lot of strenuous effort scrambling through dense vegetation up steep, muddy hillsides, sometimes to altitudes of more than 3000m. At higher altitudes, you’ll also have to contend with the thick overgrowth of stinging nettles, which can easily penetrate light clothing. As if fiery skin rashes weren’t enough of a deterrent, it also rains a lot in this area, so the going can certainly get tough (and muddy) in parts. At this altitude the air can thin out quickly, so descend to lower altitudes if you develop an intense headache."
But in our case, it was just misty and moist, nothing a Finn isn't accustomed to in any case. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable walk of around 3 hours uphill. Some of the older Brits had however payed for porter to carry their little backpacks, but this would be completely unnecessary for anybody with a good health.
Then suddenly, we saw fresh gorilla dung on our path, heard some weird noises and even more suddenly we bumped into the silverback, the charismatic male leader of the Hirwa family. There he was with his 200 kg of body mass eating bamboo leaves (they are vegetarians!). Calmly he concentrated only on the food as we stood mouths open amazed by his cool and powerful presence in front of us. We moved on to see the rest of the family: two younger males were chasing each other around bamboos. After a little while the other one grabbed my leg. I wanted to cuddle him but the guide came to hush him away with grunting sounds; of course, we weren't allowed to approach them too much but it was hard to keep the distance of advised 7 metres as the gorillas were running around. Some of the gorillas were also moving above us (see my video below), somehow they were able to not fall through the tops of the light bamboo branches; the leaves fell on us and we waited for the moment when a gorilla would thud on the ground - it didn't. Then there were the baby twins, adorable like plush toys. When the silverback carried them around like a protecting father, we sighed and I had to hold my tears.
In fact, I was about to burst into tears several times during the 70 minutes we spent with the gorillas. The encounter and our sudden connection with the nature was somehow so magical and unimaginable. Still now, when I start describing this experience, my voice starts shaking and I get tears in my eyes. Definitely, seeing the mountain gorillas is one of the most magnificent moments of my life. Being truly in contact with animals and especially with these human-like animals is unusual for an urban denizen. The gorillas are wonderful to look at as they are just purely beautiful, but then they also played around, showed a variety of emotions and feelings on their faces and made human-like gestures (farting, grabbing the balls, doing somersaults etc.), which made the observation even more special.
After our visiting time was over, I guess I wasn't the only one to whisper to the park rangers "can I just stay with you guys here...". I'm not at all surprised that Dian Fossey got so obsessed about these animals, putting them before humans. I understand this passionate regard towards them and they will always have a certain place in my heart (and in my bank account through WWF donations). It's impossible for me to think that some people would rather have a dead gorilla's hand as an ashtray in their living room (like portrayed in the Gorillas in the Mist) than have these intelligent and beautiful creatures live peacefully in the mountains. It's a disgusting thought, like all the illegal wildlife trade taking place in the world.
The estimated number of mountain gorillas is around 790 at the moment. Their situation has improved as the social and political conditions in Rwanda and Uganda have grown more stable (during the Idi Amin years, soldiers killed wild animals for food in many national parks in Uganda) and the tourism has proved to be more profitable than poaching. Prior to 1999 the Parc National des Volcans was still out of bounds because of the armed conflict, the presence of Lord Resistance Army and the aftermath of the genocide; now it seemed very safe. A 500 USD permit (which I think has now been increased to 750 USD) is an appropriate price for the rich Westerners (the local people pay much less) if it helps preserving the wildlife in Africa. That's how I perceived the fee, a contribution to environmental conservation and an incentive for the local communities to develop sustainable tourism, i.e. not only an entrance fee.
I understood during this trip in Africa that nature gives me bigger kicks than culture, so I guess I will be doing more hiking and nature escapes in the future if possible. The next primates I want to see are the orangutans in Indonesia. But then, I only had a glimpse of lions in Uganda and that bothers me a bit. And I really want to do the Annapurna trek in Nepal. Of course, I should visit the national parks in Finland first. I can also imagine myself tenting in the Scottish highlands or doing yoga on a secluded beach in India. And now that I've written this, I really want to go to Rwanda again! Oh boy, the problem of travelling is the side-effect of even bigger craving for new trips.
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