Gorillas in the Sun

This weekend I got to see the gorillas in northern Rwanda near the border with Uganda. I heard them and even smelled them - unforgettable. I hitched a ride with friends in Kigali to Volcanoes National Park hoping I could score a pass to see the gorillas once I got to Ruhengheri. On the way from Kigali, we climbed through steep purple hills, drove through clouds and came out at a beautiful (and wet) little guesthouse at about 3000 meters. I talked to some of the guides and found a pass that hadn’t been sold (they only sell a select number each day, regulated by the government). In the morning we took off and went through a painless but slightly messy selection process to determine which lucky group of tourists would trek to which gorilla group. Ultimately we were matched with Umubano, the Kinyarwandan word for friendship. We were told to keep on the lookout for Charles, the Silverback and Hakuna Matata, the youngest gorilla in the group at 5 months. After 40 minutes on what I’m sure is the single worst road I’ve ever driven, we came to a clearing and were on the way on foot. The guide said it could be a few hours or they could be close by. We hiked through the bamboo jungle, the floor giving way as we traversed nests of stinging nettles and bamboo as far as the eye could see. Our guide would stop us to give short briefings on the animals’ sounds – the low grunts to mean they are happy and content, the sounds I can only describe as “yummy” sounds when they’ve eaten too much bamboo and are slightly tipsy as a result, and the high shrill sounds when they are scared or have cause for alarm.

We rounded a bend and the guide, Oliver, met two trackers. After a few minutes Oliver calmly told us that the gorillas were just ahead and we should leave all our packs with one tracker and start the watching time. We were held strictly to one hour with the gorillas – the only hour they are to be seen by humans during the day. Out underneath a stalk of bamboo we saw a juvenile break a branch of bamboo to eat. We moved slowly into a small clearing and saw the Silverback stretched out basking in the sun. Two small babies rolled around over and around him playing. Two other juveniles and myriad other larger gorillas were all around us. The guide told us he would keep us 7 meters from them but if they came closer to us it was fine. So there we were, more like 7 feet from some of them, watching. At times they got so close I swore it was 7 inches. They moved slowly as a pack, babies throwing themselves from high bamboo branches to land squarely on an adult’s back for a ride, some staying inside the bamboo bush. The Silverback seemed the proudest, almost finding a perch at two separate times to show his magestic silver back and pose in the sunlight. All around us were sounds of birds and bamboo cracking – and the grunts and movements of these animals. At the end of the hour we were ready to go back and slowly moved toward the edge of the park once again.