The Gorilla Loop

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Firstly apologies that this is going to be a mammoth blog but this last few weeks has possibly been the most adventurous and fast moving of the trip so far!

Although my gut reaction is to start with what was always going to be one of the main highlights of this trip - the gorilla trekking - in the interest of keeping the route in order and up to date with where I've been, I'll start from where I left off!

And so into Kenya where we were to endure some of the worst roads so far - gravel, bumps, sand and a max speed of 20km per hour was possible but our journey was made more exciting by the immediate fact that watching out of the window might offer the prospect of seeing animals in the bush. We did three lovley bush camps when arriving into the country and did manage to see vultures, dik diks (small deer), baboons and jackals. The last night of bush camping in Kenya provided much enjoyment as it was to be our truck variety night where each of us in our cook group 3's were to perform a skit we had been working on based somehow on the trip. It was a very funny evening and each group did something completely original and clever including a poem that involved each one, a rap and a play based on Blind Date where the pitta had to choose to date the salad, falaffel or humous (based of course on our Egyptian leg of the trip!). Myself, Leila and Dean did a song based on "I Am The Music Man" which featured verses about each person and their sayings. The saying "Sweet, sweet, sweet, whoop whoop" (words said all the time by our tour leader Mel) has actually made it as a slogan on our truck t-shirts that we have just had printed along with my new nickname "Melonnaise" (don't ask!).

From our border corssing at Moyale we passed through Marsabit, Wamba and onto Nakuru where we did our first game drive in Nakuru National Park. We were really lucky at the game drive with the amount of animals we saw and how close they all were. Among them we saw lions, zebra, hippos, giraffe, rhino (including the endangered and elusive black rhino) buffalo, pelicans and flamingo (who are common in the Rift Valley area).
One other really interesting stop we made was to a Samburu Village to meet with the tribes women. The Samburu tribes traditionally are nomadic (their name means beautiful butterfly which is very fitting of the many jewels and lovely clothes they wear), the males are warriers and their usual diet is milk and animal blood. However, the village we visited was made up of women only who have fled from violent marriages and set up a refugee village and fight against female circumcision. The women are very beautiful and wear lots of beads and jewellery (each row of beads they wear are given to them by male admirers so the more they have the more admirers they have!). They showed us around their village, danced for us and made us join in with the dancing and showed us the school where we spent a little time with the children - they again sung for us and even through in some English songs like “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. It was a lovely experience and great to hear a little about their culture.

The last bush camp in Kenya ended as a nice surprise as we pulled into an amazing campsite with log cabins, big pool and an underground bar! It was an exciting surprise after 4 days of no showers and a good sign of things to come as most of our trip from now on we’ll be staying in campsites with just the odd bush camp in between (but nothing like the 4-5 nights in a row of camping in the bush like we have been doing through Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia).

And so next was crossing over into Uganda which was a big surprise to me as a country. I’d not really thought of what I expected it to be like but I never imagined it would be so cosmopolitan with malls, coffee shops and more modern than Egypt in many ways. We had a few nights stopover in Kampala which was a welcome break from the road to feel a little more human again - do some souvenir shopping, have a night out on the town and even had a cheap pedicure (the toll the sand, mud, bush and constant flip-flop wearing has on your feet is amazing and I was quite embarrassed of the state my feet were in when I presented them to the therapist!). It was also our 2nd truck birthday so an excuse to play a few games (including pass the parcel with dares and pin the truck on the map of Africa to guess our position!).
The last stop in Uganda before Rwanda was at Lake Bunyonyi which is a lake high on a hill with stunning views over small islands and again another lovely campsite. The highlights of the two day stay were a trek up one of the hillsides to see views over the islands, swimming in the lake and a visit to a community project. Oasis Overland (the company I’m travelling with) helped to set up the initiative of Kyabahinga Vulnerable Children’s Care in 2004 in order to develop the village and be able to educate it’s orphaned children. Now, five years on every one of the 400+ children are sponsored to be sent to school right through primary and secondary. The children are amazing, so full of fun and we spent a good few hours dancing with them, singing and taking endless photos of them wearing my sunglasses! Initiatives like this really make you think - the children so happy even though they have nothing but the fact that they now have the gift of education really means so much to them. I thought it was such a good cause that I decided to give some more of my sponsorship money from the Three Peaks to them in order to buy two goats (who will in turn breed and provide milk and help them become more self sufficient in case the charities can’t continue to fund the community).

So, finally the much-awaited day was almost here and it was time to cross over into Rwanda ready for the gorilla trek. But first a stop in Kigali town (the capital) to visit the genocide museum and learn some more about this lovely countries brutal history. The museum was very moving and we had a very quiet truck ride after leaving with everyone deep in thought about the horrific events. I remember vaguely seeing reports back in 1994 about what was going on in Rwanda but the info at the museum re-confirmed the lack of real help or news reports from the rest of the world that was worthy of what was actually happening. Over one million people brutally killed in under one hundred days is such an enormous thing to get your head around, especially difficult was the part of the museum dedicated to children - the families of children had provided the last photo they had of them and bits of info on their favourite food, favourite sport etc. and then the way they were killed (often by machete, mines or things like being stabbed in the eyes and head) these facts and pictures will be foreve stuck in my mind. There are remembrance gardens surrounding the mass graves of 20,000 people and a plaque is just starting to be put up with the names of victims but so far only 2000 names appear and only half are actually known. Speaking to other Rwandans after seeing the museum, it’s clear that they want to remember the atrocities in order to build the future and educate people so that the same thing doesn’t happen again. It’s also refreshing to hear that people now consider themselves as Rwandans and the divides of the Tutsi and Hutu no longer exists.

The next day was the trek into the Virunga Volcanoes to see one of the seven families of mountain gorillas who live there. There are 264 that live in Rwanda (and only 600 in the wild in total - the other places they live are in the Congo and Uganda) and only 56 permits are given out each day to visit them in Rwanda (in order to not endanger them) so we were aware how unbelievably previledged we were to be embarking on this experience. I had hoped to be one of the group to see the Sousa family of gorillas (the family Diane Fossey studied for so many years and fought against poachers as in Gorillas in the Mist) but when we got our briefing from the guides at the HQ it turned out my group would see the Kwitonda family which we were more than happy with (none of the Oasis group were put in the Sousa trek so at least we weren’t missing out). The excitement really set in when we realised our family consisted of 18 in total with 3 silverbacks, females and 3 babies. So, after a short briefing we took a 30 minute drive out to borders of the National Park and trekked through fields and farming to get to the walls of the park where the thick jungle began. On the way to the park we were met with beautiful views all around of the seven volcanoes with mist surrounding them that set the scene even more for the experience to come. Our guide then told us more about the gorillas , their habitat , theire food and even demonstrated the noise they make before we set off into the jungle and the 30 min trek that we had to come before we found the family (the excitement really did set in then once the trackers told us of this time frame and everyone couldn’t stop smiling knowing that in 30 mins we’d be face to face with these amazing creatures). The trek was slippy with vines, trees and thick undergrowth to contend with before hearing our first noises of the gorillas in the trees. I spotted two large black shapes above me in the trees and heard the sound of cracking branches before we turned the corner and came face to face with a large silverback. It was the most breathtaking sight to be so close to such a huge wild creature (in the briefing we were told we’d get around 7m to them but in reality there were times when we were under 2m away) and that he wasn’t concerned that eight humans were so near. I took time to sit and just observe the first one without being behind camera lens and found myself not breathing when he turned in a very relaxed way and looked straight at me whilst still chewing on a branch! We had one hour with them in total and in that time the guides / trackers moved us around to get the best views and in total got to see the three silverbacks, two babies about six females and adults both in the trees and on the ground. The one baby was gorgeous with big curly sticking-up hair and was looking at us from up in the trees with his mother. The most heart-stopping time came though when we were sat observing the no. 2 ranking silverback and all of a sudden the no. 1 ranking silverback came bounding out of the trees on all fours and pounced on the other (but the way he leapt he was coming as if straight towards us and looking us right in the eyes). Even our guide looked a bit startled and told us all quickly to move back - to which I managed to get my feet caught in a vine and fell over down a mound! We all agreed we were pretty scared but it was such a brilliant moment that reminded us all that these are wild, unpredictable creatures (who are very big!). The hour seemed to go so quickly - but not before the grand finale of a female swinging through the trees and coming down to playfully fight with another on the ground with a baby on her back the whole time - and before we knew it we were on our way out of the park. This is definitely one of those experiences I will never forget and I have some amazing pictures and video to help me and I still cannot believe how similar the gorillas are to us. For the rest of that day (and intervals over the next few days) none of our group could keep the smiles from our faces from the wonderful experience of the mountain gorillas.

And so it was then time to start back on the loop to Uganda but this time stopping in Jinja where we had three days and the opportunity to do white water rafting. Jinja is where the Nile comes down from Sudan and the rafting at Bunjanyali Falls is amazing - most of the rafting elsewhere is only grade 3 but a few of these falls are grade five and terrifying! I loved the whole day though, we turned the raft once and I ended up under it which was pretty scary but such an adrenaline rush.

The other thing I did at Jinja was spend the day volunteering at Soft Power Education and helped paint rooms of a local school. The charity was set up in 2005 by an overland tour leader in order to help support the local schools and give them better access to extra subjects as well as regenerate the very run-down school rooms. In 1997 Uganda brought in free primary education for everyone meaning the schools were suddenly overrun with children and classes with up to 60 people in each. Soft Power has built a community centre that offers art classes, drama and ICT and the 27 schools in the area take one day a week to come to the centre and have the opportunity to take part in these subjects that they would normally not get in their school. It was a really fun day and felt like we were making a difference as we managed to get two school rooms finished in the day and even had some help from some of the local children who got more paint on themselves than the walls (although so did I!).

From Jinja it was back into Kenya where we did one last bush camp before heading to Lake Naivasha and then to Nairobi where we are now. The last bush camp was indeed an experience - we set up camp and all went to bed by 9pm (sounds very early and we wouldn’t think of going that early at home but what with 5-6am starts most days and the dark coming in at about 7pm the evening seem so long and sleepiness soon starts!) to the sounds of heavy thunder and lighting but got awoken at 11pm by Mel the tourleader telling us we had to leave straight away and move on as police had come to tell us that bandits were in the area! It was very scary to be packing tents up in the pitch black with such a threat looming but also very exciting. We managed to get everything packed quickly and headed onto the truck to be driven to the nearest town of Nakuru to a campsite and safety. The drive was still quite scary especially as we kept having to stop to talk to police but from the back we weren’t sure what was stopping us!

We then headed to Nairobi where we lost a few people from the trip who were only doing half the trip(which was very sad once we've known people for so long and bonded) so had a few nights stop over and we did a visit to a giraffe sanctuary where I managed to kiss them which was amazing how close you can get. They are such gentle creatures and serene, definitely one of my favourites along with elephants!

So from Nairobi we headed to Tanzania where we are now and where we've just done the Serengeti trip (amazing - will update on next blog) before now heading to Dar es Salaam and then to Zanzibar where we’ll be for Christmas - It’ll be strange being on a tropical beach on Christmas day and maybe not feel very festive but I’m sure it’ll be very enjoyable!

Happy Christmas everyone if I don’t get chance to do another blog before!

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