One of the female gorillas in our group, Umubano:
Gorilla tracking in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda, was amazing. We woke up early and drove the 20 or so minutes to get to the park headquarters for our briefing by our guide, Edward. This is the same park headquarters that we were at a few days before when we did the hike to Dian Fossey's grave. Again, this is where almost every tourist in Rwanda was at on that morning it seemed ... not that there were that many people though - maybe 50 or so? We had some tea and then were briefed by Edward, told a bit about our group of gorillas that we were going to, and what to expect, how to behave, etc. Our group was the Umubano group, with the silverback male named Charles, and another silverback, his son, named Star. Umubano means "neighborliness" or "friendship & cooperation" in Kinyarwandan. We practiced our grunting, which is how the trackers and guides communicate with the gorillas and detect their behavior and try to soothe them when they are agitated. Our group was 8 people - two Aussies, Tania and Adam, who we'd made friends with at our hotel over the last couple days, two Canadians, Anika and Josh, and two British people whose names I never caught. After our briefing, we all hopped back into our cars to drive up to the launch point for our hike. It was the same place that we started our Dian Fossey hike, so the roads were again so bumpy - our driver told us they have to change the tires at least every 5 months! We parked at the launch point, got our walking sticks and our armed soldier guards, and then headed out for the hike to the gorillas.
The hike was pretty intense - we hiked pretty fast, and it was quite steep and through thicker brush than the hike to Dian's research site and grave. We literally were wandering through vegetation over our heads and just traipsing through the jungle. I again felt that it was a bit surreal that we got to hike through the jungles in Rwanda to see the gorillas in person. After about an hour and a half to 2 hours, we arrived at a location to drop off our bags and meet with the trackers. They send out trackers at dawn, before the hiking begins, to find the different gorilla groups so that we know where to hike to. The gorillas obviously don't stay in one place all the time, so sometimes it's difficult to find them. Our gorillas were easily found, though, and once we met the trackers, we hiked another 10 minutes or so to get to where they were. Sometimes the gorillas are in open areas, or in ravines, sometimes sitting in the sunshine. Our gorillas were not doing any of the above. When we arrived, the big silverback, Charles, was in a sort of cave made out of bamboo so that we could see the side of him, but he was not cooperating, and then he turned around and was just sticking his feet out of the cave. Something told me these gorillas are quite intelligent and he was just refusing to pose for our cameras. :)
When you track the gorillas, you only get one hour to visit with them - and that is very strictly followed. So when we couldn't see the gorillas well, our guide, Edward, had us go back to an area where we could relax a bit until the gorillas moved to an area where we could see them better. That was great because we then got more time with the gorillas from when we could actually see them. So eventually they moved to where we were amongst a bunch of bamboo, and it was absolutely amazing. Charles, the big silverback, chased the younger silverback, his son Star, away a bit - apparently because Charles has a new female in the group that has been clandestinely sneaking away with Star and Charles is none too happy about it. Seriously. Haha, they have complicated lives just like we do.
So we were able to spend an hour with the gorillas, moving around with them and coming very close. At one point, Star, the younger silverback (though still 350 pounds!), came walking around some vegetation and decided he wanted to stand right where I was. So he walked over to me, stood next to me with his shoulder nudging my legs, and just stayed there... At which point I was sure he was going to turn to his left and grab my leg and take a big bite. Fortunately he didn't, he just wanted my spot, and Edward sort of pulled me up onto the hillside behind Star just to make sure nothing happened. So I've been touched by an endangered mountain gorilla. My life might be complete now. We saw several of the female gorillas in the group and were charged a couple times by one of the mamas in the group who thought we were too close to her babies. And there might be few things as frightening as a gorilla charge, but thankfully Edward and our other tracker know how to communicate with the gorillas, so Edward started grunting loudly and swung his arms up high to charge her back and she calmed down.
The babies are soooooo cute. One of the babies put on a show for us and was pounding on its chest for a few minutes, which was absolutely adorable. We got some amazing pictures and the memories will last forever. I cannot believe we were so lucky to get so close to such amazing and majestic creatures. They are huge! And their facial expressions are so similar to humans'. The different gorillas are identified by their nose prints-- like a human's fingerprint, gorillas each have a distinctive noseprint. And they act like humans - scratching, playing, being coy ... we even saw one of the gorillas picking its nose! Pretty gross, but definitely a human-like trait.
I felt a bit like we were gorillas, too, with the work that we had to do to get to them. We were climbing through the bamboo and the other bushes and trees - they don't exactly walk along nice trails and paths like we would. They just pummel their way through the jungle and so we had to do the same pretty much - with the help of a panga (machete) that the tracker was using. I didn't mind it so much - actually I really enjoyed it because as I said before, I felt like we were gorillas too! What I did mind were the stinging nettles. There are a few different kinds of stinging nettles in the jungles there and they were everywhere in the spots where the gorillas chose. They must have much thicker skin than us because they didn't mind, whereas we were nearly dying of stinging nettle stings. They hurt quite badly and then start to itch for about an hour and we were all covered in the stings. And they went through clothing, so it didn't help to be covered up. At one point when one of the gorillas walked through our group (which happened several times), we had to sort of get out of their way, so I jumped back and sat in a stinging nettle plant - ouch! But totally worth it, and I'd take the stinging nettles again twice over for the experience of spending an hour hanging with Rwanda's mountain gorillas. It is truly an experience that I will remember always, and one that I'll be hard-pressed to top I think.
So here are some of my favorite pictures from the gorilla trekking with the Umubano group and Charles, the 450 pound silverback!
Me and Charles:
A female gorilla munching on some bamboo:
Trekking through the jungle:
Baby gorillas are the cutest!!
Star, the younger silverback in the group:
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