Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2009
Edit Blog Post
025
View across the mountains near the Volcans National Park Today we enter Rwanda, a country filled with excitement because they represent the home of the gorillas for us, but a place also filled with distant recollections of the Rwandan genocide which happened only 15 years ago. Driving into the country, the scenery changes dramatically, the low-lying plains of Uganda replaced with narrow valleys and steep hillsides - all utilised for agriculture. Rarely have I seen cultivated land so high up... the land is filled with tea plantations and other food crops, and the locals toiling in the fields stop their work and watch us as we pass.
Our first stop is the capital city, Kigale, which occupies a commanding position on a hill amid a series of dramatic valleys. We go to the genocide museum, established in the aftermath of the violence to fuel reconcilliation and remembrance. It is a sobering place. Mass graves containing some of the 2 million Rwandans killed in the atrocities lie in unmarked concrete bunkers on a series of terraces below the museum, while the museum itself contains a series of exhibits explaining what happened and why. Signs of the genocide today are few and far between... despite unimaginable horrors just one generation ago,
029
A penny for your thoughts... the Rwandan people wore nothing but smiles as we drove past.
The real reason we were in Rwanda, as with most modern-day tourists, was to experience one of the truly amazing wildlife experiences on the planet - trekking with the critically-endangered mountain gorillas which occupy forests spread between Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We were doing our trek in Parc National des Volcans, 15 minutes outside the town of Ruhengeri. Our trek began amid farmland on the edge of the park, where a high stone wall marks the boundary between man and nature. Encroachment of farming has already claimed some of the park, and we hope that the increasing value of the gorillas for Rwandan tourism (the trekking fee is currently being doubled to $1,000) will ensure that no more is lost.
After just an hour’s trek through dense forest, we met our group of trackers. We were visiting the largest family of gorillas, with 26 members including a silverback and 13 youngsters - some as young as a month. The moment we met them in the thick of the bamboo was unexpected and exhilarating. Despite the instructions to stay 8 metres from any gorilla,
031
Gorillas in the undergrowth if a gorilla wanted to walk where we were standing, we didn’t have much option and had to let it, which meant we were at times within a metre of them - even the silverback. The poor light and thick bamboo made photography difficult (hence a lack of good photos!), but this turned into a blessing as we sat back and watched a pair of youngsters play flight under the watchful gaze of the silverback, without a camera parked in front of our faces. Several times they rolled around, swung on branches and wrestled eachother to the ground, to then beat their chests triumphantly and start the game again. Magical.
We spend the rest of the day on a high, having experienced something very few people get the chance to do and having spent some time with an amazing, gentle and highly social creature. Diane Fossett (author of Gorillas in the Mist) studied gorillas in this park, and the work continues to protect and understand this rare species. It is well worth $500 and even $1,000, particularly if these creatures can be protected for future generations.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0242s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
liliram
liliram
Wow!
Must be a truly awesome experience for you. Now I know I have to save up for this adventure! Thanks for sharing this. And welcome to TravelBlog!