Fast Forward -- Trekking with the Gorillas in Rwanda

I'm a little behind on my writing but before I take off on the 20 night camping safari to from Kenya to Victoria Falls, I want to reflect upon my gorilla trek in Rwanda.

I arrived in Kigali last Sunday expecting to find a neat yet bustling town. After the 1994 genocide (for which I recommend a Google search for some of the details), Rwanda has become known as a country of progress and reconciliation -- with, as I learned, a bit of normal political tension layered on top. And that picture was mostly accurate, at least until I did a Google search for recent news articles and found that there is quite a dissident movement growing here which included a grenade attack at a central market in Kigali just last month. Glad I didn't read about that until I left :)

In any event, I had a very nice driver named Omar who drove me the 2.5 hours to Ruhungeri near the Volcano National Park which is home to about 275 gorillas that are divided into approximately 10 families. Omar told me that life in the country has progressed though things are still very challenging. In fact, the poverty is as stunning as all we have seen on TV and the life there is very, very basic and rural.

But Omar has clearly adopted the message that there is ONE Rwanda. When I inquired about his family background -- was he Hutu or Tutsi (the two main groups here) he answered, "I am Rwandan." That was a good wake up call about the sensitivity around the genocide and where the line is drawn on trying to identify people by their ethnic or group heritage.

While I was lucky to get to town by dinner time, my travel companion, Bill struggled with the typical African flight delay from Kenya of about 8 hours. I was so pleased that my flights had connected seamlessly. Later I appreciated that I was due my turn! :) (for another post)

So to the treks. I had two treks that were so different that I really appreciate how much there is to study about these gracious, almost human animals. According to the guides, the gorilla's genetic make up is about 97% the same as humans.

Our first day we went to the departure site at the national park and were divided into groups of less than 10 -- an effort by the government to preserve the habitat and to maintain some distance and safety for the animals. As we later learned this was challenging even with our group of 7.

Once driven to our drop-off location, day 1 entailed a 20 minute walk across farm land and about an equal amount of time (or slightly longer) once in the national forest. We came across our family rather quickly though the guide said it could take 20 minutes or 2 or more hours. We definitely hit the low range of time and distance taht day. What we encountered was a family who were just beginning their 9 AM nap (love that) and were cuddling and playing gently in their day nest. It was a wonderful site as the Silverback (the daddy who weighs more than 400 lbs) lay on his back with paws up in the air and with his entourage surrounding him which includes a small number of males, a larger number of females and about 4 little baby gorillas which were SO cute. When I get to Mauritius I will try to post some pictures but they look just as you would imagine: big, furry, gentle, pressed in noses, big paws and a blissful sweet appearance (unless you make them mad which seems pretty hard to do.) How do I know that? Well I was having my picture taken with my back to a nearby gorilla who had been resting peacefully. Within a second, my friend Bill whispered to me, "the gorilla is moving." Well it took several seconds to process and when I turned around, this mid-size female was ambling in my direction, very slowly and appearing quite mellow. I calmly moved to one side, and the very nice gorilla kept moving along in her desired direction and that was that.

We had about 1 hour total with the gorilla family and it went by so quickly it seemed like only 5 minutes. It was really a thrill and worth the time to visit the very beautiful, green and hilly country of Rwanda.

Stay tuned for a completely different experience and the endurance test of finding our gorilla family on Day 2.