I honestly can’t remember who first told me about this
experience, that you can go to Rwanda and hike to meet the same mountain
gorillas that Dian Fossey lived with during her “Gorillas in the Mist”
period. I certainly know I didn’t come
up with this idea myself, so to whomever recommended th
Gorilla time!!!
We woke up early – really early – to eat breakfast at 6 so
that we would be ready for our 6:30 am pickup time. It turns out that Sandra is a morning person,
whereas I am definitely not, so she spent breakfast chatting with the guy who
runs the guest house where we were staying (Onesmus), and I spent it grunting
into a cup of coffee whenever they asked me a direct question. It takes me a little while to get going in
the morning :)
Rama picked us up at 6:30, and we drove out to the Volcanic
National Park, where we would be hiking.
The park is home to 18 different gorilla families. 10 of those are acclimated to tourists and
are visited daily by a group of no more than 8 people (plus staff). The other 8 families are reserved for
researchers to observe. Before we could
get going, first we had to get the administrative stuff out of the way. While Rama went to meet with the park
rangers, who would be assigning groups to the different gorilla families, we stayed behind and watched some local dancers.
We had heard from people at the hostel in
Kigali that the Susa family is the best one to get because that was the family
that Dian Fossey lived with, and some of the gorillas there were babies when
she was living with them. We ask Rama to
request the Susa family for us, but if we can’t get them (they’re the most requested
family for obvious reasons) then to prioritize assigning us to a large family
with a wide range of ages included.
While we are waiting for the assignments to be handed out, we sit in a
covered pavilion and are entertained by Rwandans who perform a series of
traditional dances for us, complete with accompanying drums. The show and the cold mountain air combine to
finally wake me up, so after a few minutes there I am ready to go see some
gorillas! I start to form a plan for
stealing one of the babies if we’re lucky enough to see one. I decide I will name it TikiTwo and will
bring it with me to Cape Town to fill in for the original Tiki. Sandra looks at me like I’m crazy but laughs
when I tell her my plan. Apparently she
thinks I’m joking.
Rama comes back to us with a frown on his face, which has us
worried. He tells us that we were
assigned to the Amohoro family. Sandra
had heard that this was a “boring” family because the dominant silverback is so
relaxed. In fact, the family is named
for his chill demeanor – Amahoro means “peace” in the local language. Rama assures us that it actually is a good
family to visit because it is big – with 19 members – and that there are a wide
range of ages. Plus Sandra had only
heard that through the grapevine, so we decide to take Rama’s word for it and
start to get excited about our hike.
Now that the assignments have been announced, we meet up
with the rest of our 8-person group and our guide for the day – Eugene – for a
briefing. Our group has 2 older German
ladies in their late 60’s, plus a South African family of 4, with ages ranging
from mid-40’s to 18. Eugene tells us
about the Amohoro family and explains the process from here on out. The gorillas are monitored all day every day,
but are left alone at night to sleep.
The people who monitor them are called “trackers” (cool name, right?),
and it’s their job to locate the family every morning and stay with them until
sundown. Because it is still early,
Eugene tells us that the trackers haven’t yet found the gorillas today, but the
trackers are out there looking for them, starting from where they left the
gorillas last night. He assures us that
99% of the time they are able to find them, and so we set off in what we think
is their general direction. First, we
have to drive another 40 minutes along dirt roads to the place where the hike
begins, which is basically in a small village near the edge of the Volcanic
National Park. The guides distribute
walking sticks for everyone. I find this
kind of touristy since the terrain doesn’t look all that bad from where I’m
standing, but Rama tells me I should take one anyway because “there’s mud in
the jungle.” Um, ok. I take a stick and we head off.
The first segment of the hike was just from the parking spot
to the edge of the park. We are hiking through
gigantic fields of wild daisies, followed by fields of wheat and sorghum,
framed by the volcanoes in the distance.
It’s a pleasant enough hike, though the trail is rocky and I find myself
wishing I had brought my proper hiking shoes rather than just my
cross-trainers. Oh well.
Daisies everywhere!
Finally we reach the edge of the park, which is delineated
by a large rock wall that runs along the entire perimeter. On the other side of the wall is a large
ditch, and both are in place to prevent the animals from leaving the safety of
the park. Apparently gorillas have no
natural predators, but humans have a bad habit of poaching them and trying to
sell their babies to private zoos. When
we get to the wall, we meet up with one of the trackers – a man who apparently
worked directly with Dian Fossey while she was living here. He is accompanied by two soldiers carrying
rifles. Eugene explains to us that these
men are here for our protection against any animal attacks. Apparently there are wild buffalo in the park
who are not used to being around humans, and they have horns which can do some
damage.
Unless the scarecrow takes care of them first
We climb over the wall, cross the ditch on some bamboo
poles, and are in the jungle. Or is it a
rainforest? Sandra and I admit we don’t
know the difference between the two.
The trail we are taking is pretty narrow and would be difficult to spot if
we hadn’t climbed over the wall at exactly the right spot. Eugene has instructed us to walk in a single
file line and keep noise to a minimum to increase our chances of seeing other
wildlife on the hike. Apparently the
trackers have located the Amahoro family, and they are about a 1-2 hour hike
ahead of us, depending on our pace and how many breaks we have to take. The day started out chilly, but we’ve already
been hiking for close to an hour, and so I’m warmed up enough to shed my
outermost layer.
The hike begins simply enough, with dense brush on either
side but relatively flat ground. That
terrain quickly disappears, replaced by pits of mud. The jungle is so thick on either side of us
that we can’t deviate from the trail, so we are forced to tiptoe around the
muddy parts, hoping to not take a wrong step and suffer the icky
consequences. At this point, I remind
myself to thank Rama for telling me to take the walking stick – it’s
indispensable on this hike. In parts
where the mud is particularly impassable, I can use the walking stick as a
third leg to balance myself as I try to shuffle on the outer edges of the
trail, which tended to be less muddy but also very small and difficult to
navigate. In some parts of the trail,
the only way to get through was to hop from slippery rock to slippery rock, and
there the pole came in handy as well to keep me from slipping and getting a
mouthful of African mud.
Mmmmm tasty mud
We continue on in this fashion, hopping and shuffling our
way around the muddy parts. Keep in mind
that this is all done at an altitude of ~2,500m and is entirely uphill. Some parts are VERY steep and slippery, and
the porters who are accompanying us have to help us up the hills because
otherwise we would have found ourselves involuntarily going down a muddy
version of a slip-and-slide. The porters
had nice rubber boots on that allowed them to slosh right through the muddy
parts, and they seemed to know the trail very well so that they knew when we
would need assistance and when we wouldn’t.
Another thing about the jungle was that it is full of evil plants
that inflict pain. The path was lined
with different types of stinger plants, just waiting for me to brush up against
them so they could give me a rash. Given
my clearly graceful disposition in the jungle (bah!), I may or may not have
tottered into a few of these bushes, resulting in my hands, arms and legs being
decorated with a patchwork of itchy redness and hives. I’m starting to itch again just thinking about it.
Try not to touch ANYTHING
And then, it happened.
We were about halfway up the volcano (did I mention the slope we are
climbing is a volcano?) when I took one wrong step, and slipped into the
mud. Thankfully I didn’t fall completely,
but both of my shoes were completely submerged in the ankle-deep mud. I pull them out, and try hard to keep them on
my feet as they make a weird slurpy sucking noise. I’m able to pull my feet out without losing
either shoe, but my feet and the bottom of my pants are absolutely covered in
mud, and my shoes are filled with mud and water. It was not a pleasant feeling. I suppose it did have a silver lining – I no
longer have to be as careful about avoiding the muddy parts. Yes of course I will continue to avoid them
as much as possible, since they posed a serious risk of sucking my shoes into
the depths of the earth, but I didn’t care as much if I got dirty.
About 2 hours after we entered the park, the trackers stop
us and tell us that we are close to the gorillas. We leave behind all of our gear except our
cameras (including the walking sticks – yikes) and shuffle the last 50 meters
to get to the family. The family is hanging
out in a very dense area of the jungle.
There are no trails there, so in order to make room for us, the trackers
would use their machetes to bend down the taller plants so that we could stand
on them. However, if a gorilla decided
to move from its position, sometimes it would walk toward us and we would have
nowhere to go! We moved around as much
as we could to give them space, but a few times I was mere inches away from
these creatures.
At first we could only see a couple gorillas’ heads poking
out through the jungle. Even though we
could barely see them, our entire group got incredibly excited. They’re here – in their natural habitat! It’s so much different than seeing them in a
zoo. This is where they’re meant to be, after all. Plus apparently the gorillas you see in zoos
are always lowland gorillas, who are a different species, because mountain
gorillas can’t survive in captivity.
The first gorilla we saw in his entirety was the boss of the
entire family – an enormous silverback, who has a local name that I can’t
remember so I’ll call him Big Daddy. He
is an older gentleman – about 40 years old into his approximate 45 year
lifespan. He is the alpha of the group
and the father of most of the family. He
greeted us first by ignoring us and walking toward an adult female, who we soon
realized had a small baby with her. Once
he got close to her, he faced her, crouched on his haunches and beat his chest
several times! The guide assured us that
this wasn’t an act of aggression on his part because he wasn’t facing us while
he was doing it. Instead it was more of
a welcome. The chest beating within the
gorilla community has many meanings depending on context.
All he wants is to be understood...and females with whom to procreate.
By comparison to the silverback, the female was small
(though still a big animal). The baby
was probably 6 months old and tiny. He
kept climbing all over his mom, trying to get her to play with him. His mom didn’t seem impressed, so she started
walking away to go climb a tree, with him clinging to her back. She moves surprisingly well for being such a
big creature.
Mom, mom - look at that! Those gorillas have alopecia!
We spent the next hour moving from gorilla to gorilla,
observing them and taking about a billion pictures. It was fascinating to see the obvious
differences in their personalities. Some
were only interested in eating.
Nom nom nom
Another was super lazy and chilled out with his belly
bulging on a pile of leaves.
Letting it all hang out
Some were playful and joking around with each other.
Tee hee
A few were curious about us and would make sustained eye
contact.
What are you lookin' at?
We ran into another mother and baby – this one was 3 months
old and SO FREAKING CUTE. As soon as I
saw him, I knew he was TikiTwo. His hair
stood straight up on his head. He kept
doing somersaults and other acrobatics and making noises that I can only
describe as giggling. I can’t even
describe how adorable he was.
TIKITWO!!!!!!!
His mom
was more engaged than the other mom with her baby – she was playing with him
and swinging him around as he rolled around.
Occasionally she would cradle him just like I cradle Cooper and tenderly
look at him while he stared at the weird hairless strangers who were nearby. Sadly, I realized pretty quickly that there was no way I
could take TikiTwo home with me without Big Daddy ripping me to shreds. I suppose he’s better off with his mom
anyway, though I’m pretty sure I would make an amazing gorilla mom. Then again, I wouldn’t want to make Tiki
jealous, so it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t adopt him.
Stop, mom! That tickles!
One thing I learned is that a silverback gorilla isn’t a
specific type of gorilla but rather it means a fully developed adult male (12
years old and up). A family can have
multiple silverbacks, but only one of them will be the alpha male. Most of the other silverbacks in a family
will be the sons of the alpha male, so they are able to peacefully
coexist. If a silverback is bothered by
the fact that he’s not allowed to mate with any of the lady gorillas, then he
can go off and start his own group. Or
sometimes he will have affairs with the women behind Big Daddy’s back (!). Once Big Daddy finds out, he will punish the
other male by biting him, but he won’t do any serious damage. It’s basically your typical family drama –
only jungle style. Apparently inbreeding
isn’t really an issue because once a female reaches adulthood, she will switch
to another family. Families will
occasionally run into each other in the wild. Sometimes a fight ensues,
resulting in women being “stolen.” Other
times they go voluntarily so that they can breed with gorillas outside their
bloodline. Some families are related to
each other (e.g. if a male separates to go start his own family), so they will
meet and just hang out like extended relatives do.
Eating, lounging, and passive aggressive chatting - just like most American Thanksgivings!
Our hour with the gorillas went by very quickly. I understand that they have to restrict the
time we have with them because it’s important for the gorillas to be able to
live their lives normally without humans bothering them, but at the same time I
wish we could have stayed for longer!
The walk down the volcano was exponentially easier and
faster than the climb up. The sunshine
had even dried up a lot of the mud (although that didn’t stop me from putting
my foot in it multiple times again). By
the end of the hike, I decided that these shoes were a write-off. I’m sure
Onesmus can find someone who would want them, so I feel ok leaving them
behind. I left the jungle bitten,
bruised, and dirty, but so happy that I made the trip. I wish I could go again tomorrow!
We got back to the car around 1:30 pm and drove back to the
entry to the park, where Eugene wrote out some official certificates of
completion for our gorilla trek. In all
honesty, it seemed like an excuse to get us to hang out for 10 minutes where
they had a bunch of shops selling handicrafts.
Nothing really caught my eye though.
After driving back into town, we stopped at the tour
company’s main office because there was a misunderstanding with our
itinerary. Sandra and I had been under
the impression that we had booked a trek to go see the golden monkeys tomorrow,
but Rama told us that his boss didn’t have that listed on our itinerary. We go to the office and meet with Ann – the
manager with whom we booked the trek. The
meeting did not go well. After looking
up the email chain, we saw that in our confirmation email to Ann, we had agreed
to the stated price if it included the gorilla trek and the golden monkey
trek. However, Ann (or her employees)
didn’t see the golden monkey part of our confirmation, and so they said “ok”
even though the price didn’t actually include the golden monkeys. After we had paid, they sent us an updated
itinerary which didn’t include the golden monkeys, but neither Sandra nor I
read the itinerary in all that much detail, so we didn’t notice until we
arrived that it was not part of the plan.
It was purely a misunderstanding, but from Sandra’s and my perspective,
it was their mistake because we had paid the fee in good faith, expecting that
we were getting more than what they were actually providing. If we had known the golden monkeys weren’t
included, we would have gone with another company that would have been
cheaper. Anyway, during this meeting we
find out that Ann’s team had messed up the dates of our itinerary as well, and
they had accidentally bought a gorilla permit to the national park for the
wrong date of our trip. So they had
already lost $750 on our trip, which made her hesitant to lose even more money
by giving us the golden monkey tour for free (although it is much less
expensive – only a $50 park entrance fee).
It was clear that if her team hadn’t already made an expensive mistake
with us that she would have cared a lot less.
Instead, she sat there and tried to debate with us whose fault it was,
saying that we should have read the final itinerary more carefully and told her
about the issues with it. We responded
by saying that we had already paid, and while it was unfortunate we hadn’t
caught the mistakes, it wasn’t our responsibility to QA the itinerary. We made it clear to her that we’ve been very
happy with our experience so far, and it would be a shame for this issue to
ruin our positive experience with her company.
She still wasn’t willing to compromise, so we left the office with her
telling us that she would “talk to someone and get back to us.” Oh well.
We had the rest of the day free to do whatever we wanted,
and I came up with what I thought was a great idea – let’s go to Uganda! The Ugandan border is only 25 km away, and apparently
the tourist activities in this part of Uganda are basically the same things as
in Rwanda, so I can’t imagine myself planning a separate trip just to come to
Uganda. Plus I wanted to add another
country to my list! In order to fully
count it, I have to actually *do* something there – I can’t cross the border
for 5 minutes and say I’ve been to Uganda.
Sandra had already been there before, but she was up for anything, and
Rama said he would drive us as long as we covered the gas expenses (because it
wasn’t included in our itinerary – something we are all very sensitive to
now). We decided we would go across the
border for a late lunch, and off we go!
The drive itself is uneventful, but the border crossing
turned out to be a pain in the neck. Rama
had told us that our visa for Rwanda should be valid for Uganda as well, so we
didn’t expect to have much of an issue.
He had to deal with a bit more red tape to get the car across the
border, and apparently the guards wouldn’t let us ride in the car to cross the
border anyway, so he drops us on the Rwandan side and tells us to walk across
the border and he will pick us up at the immigration office on the other
side. We get to the other side and go
through a series of ridiculous border procedures.
Only some of the ridiculousness was voluntary
First we show our passport to a soldier with an automatic
weapon sitting by the side of the road.
Then we get to a small building and have to go into one office, where a
Rwandan immigration official sits and gives us our exit stamps (with a heavy
dose of flirting – inviting himself to dinner with us in Uganda). Then we go into another office and get our
Ugandan entry stamps. The issue is that
Rama’s information was wrong – our visa is not valid for Uganda as well, so we
have to pay a $50 fee to get into the country.
Ugh – this dinner is turning out to be more expensive than we
anticipated. Oh well, we’re already here
so we might as well pay it. Sandra
almost flirted her way out of paying the fee (or at least it seemed like the
guy was wavering), but in the end we both had to pay it. Afterward, we waited outside the office for
Rama to come – he was taking a while on the Rwandan side because the paperwork
for the car was a bit cumbersome. We
waited for about a half hour before he showed up, and then we accompanied him
into the Ugandan office for him to complete the corollary paperwork there. He asked us to come into the office with him
because apparently the office workers are lazy and will make you wait for a
long time for no reason, but if white people are there then they seem to be
much more diligent. Unfortunately, our
presence there also meant that the office thought they could extract more money
out of us. They tried to tell Rama that
because he was driving us, his car qualifies as a “touring vehicle” (e.g.
something similar to a safari jeep), and so he would have to pay a $75
fee. Thankfully Rama is able to talk his
way out of that one – particularly because we only plan to stay for an hour or
two – so we get through without having to pay any additional fees.
While the terrain is basically the same, it was immediately
obvious that we were in a different country as soon as we crossed the
border. In Rwanda, all of the buildings
are made out of local red brick, but in Uganda, all of the buildings we passed
were made with wood! It’s kind of weird,
considering that I would expect the raw materials used to produce Rwandan
bricks are available here in Uganda as well, but Rama explained that Uganda is
much poorer of a country and so they can’t afford to use brick in as many
buildings. One benefit of Uganda being
much poorer is that the prices here are much lower – so much so that Rwandan
people will take day trips to Uganda to go shopping for basic necessities. In fact, during our time waiting for Rama at
the border we saw lots of people walking by with piles of clothing – even
mattresses carried on their heads – bringing them from Uganda to Rwanda. Once
in Uganda, we saw stores with piles of mattresses on the street, waiting for
Rwandan and Congolese buyers to come get them.
Weird, right?
Bed bugs come free with purchase!
In addition to finding a place to eat (which is quickly
becoming an early dinner rather than a late lunch), I also would like to find a
handicrafts shop where I can buy a magnet.
I’ve been collecting magnets from all of my travels since 2008 or so,
and pride myself a little bit on the eclectic collection of places represented
on my fridge. Magnets are small, cheap,
and easy to transport – unlike lots of other handicrafts. Unfortunately, the border town where we are
looking is not exactly filled with touristy places. We stop into a handful of different stores
advertising handicrafts, but none of them have magnets. Instead they have woodcrafts, woven baskets,
and things like that. After the fourth
store or so, I’m sick of looking and decide that I will instead just make my
own magnet. We agree that Sandra and I will order local beverages at dinner and
I will save the bottle caps and make a magnet out of them later. Problem solved.
Next we have to find somewhere to eat. The guy at the immigration office gave us a
recommendation to go eat at the “Tourland Hotel” restaurant. Based on the name, we don’t think that this
place is going to offer us authentic Ugandan food. Rama confirms that it’s a very touristy place
where white people go to eat, but they have things like hamburgers and other
sandwiches. No thank you.
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Note: for official use only
Instead we ask Rama to take us to a local place for
dinner. He selects one that certainly
looks local – it’s basically a small room with a few plastic tables and chairs,
and one table outside on a patio. As
with the restaurant on Twin Lakes, there is no menu – instead the waitress just
tells us what they have to offer and we say yes or no. Our
only option for dinner is goat stew with some rice and mashed plantains
on the side. Sure, why not. We sit outside at the table and chat with
Rama – who is an awesome guy – talking about Uganda and the differences between
it and Rwanda.
.JPG)
Five star Ugandan dining
The food – when it finally comes – is absolutely
delicious. The rice and plantains are
boiled without oil, so they don’t have much flavor, but instead we spoon the
rich and flavorful stew onto them and eat them together. Delicious!
Unfortunately the restaurant doesn’t serve any local beers, so instead I
get a Fanta, and Rama gets a Coke, and I’m happy to see that the bottle caps
say “made in Uganda” on them.
Score! When we go to pay the
bill, it costs about $7 in total – for 3 people.
We finish our dinner and decide that we’d like to make a
stop to buy a gift for Onesmus, since he is from Uganda. We want to buy him something that he can’t
get in Rwanda, so we go to a local bar and buy him a bottle of local banana
wine to take back with us. We’re not
actually sure if he drinks alcohol or not, so we also buy him a locally bottled
“energy tea” – whatever that is. The
banana wine sounds interesting, and Sandra and I would like to try it, so we
decide to stay at the bar for a little bit and each have our own. I’m using the word “bar” here very liberally
– it was basically a hole in the wall shop that sold beer out of a fridge. There was a bar-like structure that the
fridge rested behind, and some drunk guys standing next to it, so I guess it
counts as a bar, but not what most westerners would think of when they heard
the word “bar.” Since the place is tiny,
we step outside to enjoy our drinks, and someone pulls up a plastic table and
some plastic chairs for us.
.JPG)
Banana wine makes us giggle
Right as we step outside, we notice a young child (probably
4 or 5 years old) who is near the doorway next to his mom. He sees Sandra and me, and a look of terror
comes over his face. He starts screaming
and crying and trying to hide behind his mom.
It turns out that he had never seen a white person before! Even more, he was from a small village, and
in the villages sometimes children are taught that white people are all
cannibals, and will eat you if given the chance. Poor kid – he was scared out of his wits at
us because he thought we were going to eat him!
His mom thought it was hilarious, as did everyone else standing on the
side of the road observing the interaction, so we were able to laugh it off
pretty quickly.
Another thing that’s different about Uganda is that there
are a lot more people on the streets, just sitting around. We walked past a group of moto taxi drivers,
who yelled out something to Rama in the local language that made him say
something back in a very curt and scolding tone. Sandra and I didn’t need to use much of our
imaginations to guess what they had said to him, and what his response
was. I suppose this crowd doesn’t see a
local man like Rama walking around with two white girls very often.
Another random sight outside of the bar was a turkey! He was just wandering around, pecking at
stuff on the ground and gobbling as only turkeys can do. Rama explained to us that turkey is a prized
meat here, but the only way you can get it is by serving it at home – either by
raising it yourself and then butchering it or buying it at a specialty meat
place. It’s too expensive to be served
in restaurants or sold in regular stores.
After we finished our drinks, it was time to get back to the
border because the immigration office closes at 7:30 every night. We didn’t want to get stuck in Uganda! The border crossing was similarly frustrating
as coming over. We had to buy a new
Rwandan visa, and the petty bureaucrats who staff the desk there seemed to take
pleasure in making us wait longer than would be reasonable. Regardless of their mind games, I’m really
happy I made it to Uganda – the experience was a lot of fun!
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