Gorilla Trekking

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When we first arrived, the guides welcomed us and directed us to the wonderful Rwandan tea and coffee. That was welcome on a chilly morning. We had the opportunity to do some shopping and I found great souvenirs for Andrew and the boys. In the first photo, the guides meet to discuss where the family groups are, then they divide the visitors into groups based on how far they want to hike. Because my hip and leg are still bothering me a lot, I asked for the closest group. I was assigned to the Hirwa group with 7 Australians. Hirwa means lucky, which I took for a good omen. My driver, Banner, then got into a convoy to drive to the starting point of the trail. At the base of the trail, we met a group of porters. These are men from the local villages who escort the tourist trekkers up the mountains. They’ll carry our packs and, as I discovered, help us up or down the mountain. As it turns out, I desperately needed his help. We hiked through a lot of potato and eucalyptus fields before getting to the edge of the protected park area.

The park is surrounded by this stone fence. Our guide, Fidel, explained that this was to keep the wild buffalo and elephant populations from destroying the fields. At this point, we met our group escort, an armed member of the Rwandan military. They said she was there with her weapon in order to scare away large animals, should we come across them. We hiked for what felt like forever, but was really less than 2 hours. Finally, we were there. We left all our bags, sweaters, hiking sticks and equipment with the porters about 100 meters away from the group. The guide led us, with only our cameras to a little path, where we sat down.

It took me a minute to realize that the silverback of the group, Munyinya, was down the path, mere feet away from us. We had been cautioned not to use the flash, so many of my photos ended up blurry, but I did everything I could think of to compensate. Munyinya started walking up the trail toward us and stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. We were all looking at him and at the guide, who explained (quietly!) that the gorilla wanted to go up the trail. The others moved back a little from the trail and the gorilla calmly went past us to another clearing.

We had shifted a bit to watch Munyinya more closely when two “teenagers” wandered into the clearing, roughhousing. Teenagers are gorillas aged 3-8. It was clear that these two were practicing the behaviors that would serve them as adults: fighting, baring teeth and beating their chests. They were so funny, cute and endearing. The funniest part was that every few minutes they would stop and lay down for a rest, as if by unspoken agreement.

We had been told that this group included a mother with twins, still fairly young. The guide and tracker seemed to want to show them off and kept searching until the mother was found. We gathered around her, so, so close and watched for awhile. The two babies were nestled in her arms. One had his head out, looking around, but the other stayed hidden. Still, the two would reach their tiny, fragile hands toward each other every few minutes and hold on.

Interspersed in these two main events were sightings of two more mother and child pairs, one mother with child climbing very high in a tree and other sightings of teenagers.

I am so glad I went. It was worth every penny and every bit of pain from the climb. I think I’ll avoid gorillas in zoos now, it’s just too sad.

The trip down the mountain was filled with reflection. That, and trying not to fall down too often! At the bottom, I managed to find a tshirt with the Hirwa group on the front and “Muzungu in the Mist.” In Rwanda, Muzungu means “white person” or “foreigner.” It’s a great tshirt!

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Photos

2 of 5 volcano peaks
Dian Fossey is buried in the valley between these 2 peaks