Gorillas in the Mist - Rwanda!

Aside from our wedding day, our time in Africa was planned around one of my (Megan's) all time bucket list activities - trekking with the Mountain Gorillas in East Africa.

Having booked and paid a staggering US$500 EACH for a one hour encounter with the gorillas over 9 months ago, we were both extremely excited to get to Rwanda for this once and a lifetime experience.

Unfortunately our plans hit a serious snag upon arriving at Mt. Kiliminjaro airport when we were told we could not board our plane because I hadn't applied for the required visa 3 business days ahead of time. The rules has recently changed for Canadian and Australian passport holders who used to be able to obtain a visa on arrival at the Kigali airport in Rwanda. No amount of smooth talk or pleading was going to change the mind of the Rwandair agent.  What would we do???!?!?!?

I was in near tears and on the brink of hysteria. Mike could see me loosing my cool and took the reigns. He miraculously accessed the Internet at the airport and applied online for the visa. Being 4pm on a Friday afternoon, I wasn't hopeful that this would achieve anything. Our trek was scheduled for 3 days later on the Monday and our permits still needed to be collected, so at the latest we could arrive in Kigali was by Saturday. After submitting the application, Mike called immigration in Rwanda and incredibly someone answered the phone and agreed to process the application immediately. Unfortunately by the time we received confirmation the plane was in the air. 

The "only" penalty was that we needed to book a new flight for the next day and shuffle some plans around - but amazingly we were still off to see King Kong and his mates in the flesh! 

After an incredibly stressful situation we landed in Kigali and stayed at the local Good News Guest House, where our host Ben was wonderful in helping us navigate our way around Kigali and pick up our trekking permits.

We decided to save a few dollars and take the local bus from Kigali to Musanze, a two hour drive and the closest town to the foothills of the Parc Volcanes, home of the gorillas!

The scenery was stunning. 'Milles Collines' (or land of a thousand hills as Rwanda is known) is literally thousands of hills, with primitive terraced farming and small subsistence villages dotting the hillsides.

I could hardly sleep, which in a tight double bed, also meant that Mike didn't sleep either.

We were collected at 6am for our drive to the park. There are a number of gorilla families living in the national park, 7 of which are "tourist" groups that 8 trekkers get to visit for 1 hour each day. I wanted to visit the Susa Group, the largest family with 37 gorillas. It's also the highest family and longest trek but we read wonderful reviews that it was absolute gorillas chaos; perfect!



We began our climb in a beautiful bamboo forest, but we both quickly realized how out of shape we were; within 10 minutes we were panting.  

A dramatic change in topography, turning into dense, jungle vegetation which needed to be cut with a machete and a 2 hour climb to 3700 meters had us at the clearing the area where the gorillas were.

My heart was beating so fast and I was so nervous! I had rehearsed a million times what the encounter would be like but I suddenly became fearful that it might be completely different to what I expected. What if they couldn't feel my absolute adoration for them?! 

The trackers (who stay with the gorillas all day, every day, for 3-6 months at a time to protect them and radio the guides their general area) told us the gorillas were up and active - it was time to go!  We were instructed to leave all bags and take only cameras with us to the clearing. We were then introduced to the Susa Family...

There were 3 silverback males, a dozen females and juveniles, two sets of twins, the youngest set just 15 months old and luckily a newborn, only a week old!

 

We had been instructed to stay at least 5m from the gorillas - but they don't know those rules!  They kept coming close to us, walking past us - it was amazing and almost impossible to keep track of them all in the jungle.  At one point we were surrounded and just felt like part of the family!  Coming face to face with these amazing creatures and being allowed into their world, even for a short time was an absolute highlight of our time in Africa!!

We spent our last day and night back in Kigali, catching up with a friend I went to high school with who works for the EU and is living in Rwanda. Thanks Dan for the swim and for letting us crash at your place!

Up next and our final stop in Africa, Kenya!