Virunga - Take Two

This week I’m delighted to introduce Diana Hristova – friend, Johannes’ work colleague, loyal blog reader, and recent Rwanda visitor – as guest blogger. Enjoy her take on our visit to the mountain gorillas!

Steffi and I arrived in Kigali on a Thursday night to spend a long weekend with Johannes and Ginger on our way from Bujumbura to Dar-es-Salaam, and to go see the mountain gorillas. In “the country of a thousand hills” almost every spot offers a gorgeous view, and Kigali reminded me of San Francisco… ok, maybe the San Francisco of Africa. We started the weekend the way Johannes and Ginger usually do, with a stop in Bourbon for café lattes and crepes. For regular readers of Ginger’s blog, expectations for the drive to Ruhengeri were very high: “spectacular views, drastic drops into river valleys below and luscious green rolling hills as far as the eye can see”. However, as soon as we left Kigali, the rain was so heavy and the fog so dense that we could barely see a few meters in front of the car. We pulled up by the side of the road and played 20 questions until it slowed down. Luckily, the weather on the way back was gorgeous and the views were indeed magnificent.

We arrived at the lodge just before dinner. The place was beautiful, strangely quiet and empty, and very cold. The dining room and bar were heated with small individual size fire-pits, placed next to whoever is coldest, and the rooms had fireplaces. We kept the fire going with some World Bank reports that we no longer needed. 

Mt. Sabyinyo - the gorilla group we saw bears the same name

Mt. Gahinga and Mt. Muhabura from the Gorilla Mountain View Lodge

The next morning we showed up at the Park’s headquarters at seven, armed with power bars, water and cameras. I was half-way through Dian Fossey’s book “Gorillas in the Mist” and I was ready to dispense practical advice: Do not try and cuddle with the baby gorillas! Apparently that’s when things could become unpleasant. There are 56 permits sold every day, and seven groups of gorillas, so in the morning of the trek everyone is split into seven groups. We picked the Sabyinyo group, which has the largest silverback ever recorded (220 kilos), and the youngest baby in the park (2 months old). Our guides were both incredibly nice and knowledgeable, “equipped with a natural GPS”, as one of them said. We had a journalist from Radio France International in our group, so they spoke in both English and French the entire time. 

Guhondo, the Sabyinyo group's dominant male and the heaviest gorilla ever measured!

At the other end of the spectrum, a two-month-old baby goriilla

We had to drive about 15-20 minutes to the entrance of the park on a road that can’t fairly be called a road at all… “Rwandan massage” as Johannes put it. Once we were there, we hired a porter to carry our water, and we each got a walking stick engraved with the name of the Sabyinyo group. The first 15 minutes of the hike were through a field, but once we got into the Volcanoes Park it became a little more challenging – the vegetation was so thick that we had a guide walking in front of us with a machete to clear the way. We found the group within another 15-20 minutes. The park rules permit exactly one hour with the gorillas once you find them, and we were incredibly lucky because they had stopped for a break. So for the next hour we could just hang out with them, five meters away, take pictures, watch them curiously, and have them watch us curiously. All gorillas congregate around the silverback for comfort and protection. He was lounging in the middle of the group, first on his back, then on his stomach, then on his back… and scratching, in a very familiar human manner. The little baby was playing in its mother’s lap, an incredibly adorable tiny black ball of fluff! Luckily no one tried to cuddle with it, and after awhile the gorillas were ready to move on. We followed them for a bit, and watched one of them very skillfully peel and eat bamboo.

Look at those massive hands!

Enjoying the sunshine!

Steffi, Diana, Ginger, and Johannes with gorillas in the background

Sadly our time was up. We walked back to the Park headquarters to collect our certificates, and then headed back to the lodge. We spent the rest of the day looking through our pictures, relaxing by the fire, and planning our next adventures!