Mzungus in the Mist

Tuesday 4 October

Tuesday morning the King was awake at 5.30 am and received his bucket of hot water for a sort of shower/splash bath in the concrete area set aside in the back roundhouse for this purpose. Thank goodness it wasn't a cold morning, although the locals were all rugged up.

At 6.30 Josien, our excellent guide from EcoTours, drove me to the Park office where we were put into groups according to which group of gorillas we wanted to see, and to meet our guide. There are eight different groups that are habituated, which means they are used to humans. Trackers in the forest keep track of where the groups are so the guides know exactly where to take us. Josien decided I would visit the Kwitonda group, which is not too far away, about an hour's trek into the forest. He assured me it wasn't to do with the distance, but because he believed this is the best group to visit. It is the second biggest group, currently containing 21 gorillas, and is led by Kwitonda himself (the name means "patience' in Kinyarwanda), the oldest silverback in the forest at 35 years old. Other groups are much further away and it is possible to spend 8 hours catching up with them.

Entry to the park is strictly controlled, and no more than 80 people per day are allowed in. Permits cost $500 (US). At the last gorilla census in 2010 there were 780 in the forests of Rwanda and Uganda. Not all groups are habituated. Some groups are semi-habituated and are used for research, while some groups haven't been exposed to humans at all. Our group of trekkers, somewhat surprisingly, consists of six Australians and two Brits. Once we were assembled and briefed on the group and what the trek would be like, we were then driven in a convoy of three trucks to the park border, over absolutely the worst "road" I've ever been on (although Josien said it was the best of the roads to the park border). We got bogged at one one point but he got us out quickly. Not so the one coming behind which remained bogged and they (plus the people in the third truck) had to walk the rest of the way - fortunately we were almost at the point where the cars had to park.

We were met by some porters from the local village and even though my backpack was very light I hired one as a way of providing at least a bit of local employment. As well as carrying our packs they also kept an eye on us to make sure we were OK on the walk and would make sure we drank plenty of water.


Then a 20-minute walk through potato paddocks to the park border itself, marked by the "buffalo wall", a robust rock wall designed to keep the buffaloes from getting out of the forest and destroying the crops.

This is where we met the ranger (armed) who accompanied us in the forest, and were briefed on how to behave in front of the gorillas. The rules are:

• stay at least 7m from the gorillas
• no touching (mainly to prevent diseases being transmitted to the gorillas or from the gorillas to us)
• viewing time is limited to one hour.
• no spitting
• no flash photography
• no sudden moves
• no eating
• no sticks or backpacks with the gorillas
• keep your voice low.
• If a gorilla should charge or vocalize at you, do not be alarmed, stand still, look away from the gorilla and follow the guide’s directions.

 We then scaled the buffalo wall and headed into the forest. It was a reasonably gentle upward slope so it wasn't difficult trekking. The only difficulty was that it was quite slippery in parts.

After about an hour we were told we were almost to where the gorillas were so we had to divest ourselves of our backpacks and sticks, and then continued on about 50 metres until we rounded a corner and saw a black shape behind a clump of bamboo. Then three more black shapes materialised and we realised we were there!

No matter how many times you've seen them on TV, or seen photos of them, nothing prepares you for how beautiful they are in real life. There are a lot of young bamboo shorts at this time of year, which is the gorillas' favourite food and makes them very happy, so they were having a marvellous time.

What a comment!

While we tried to maintain the 7m, we quickly realised the gorillas didn't know what 7m looked like, and one of the younger silverbacks came over to us, turned his back on us and urinated in our direction. After a little while one of the other young silverbacks (there are four in this group, as well as Kwitonda himself) stood up and beat his chest but the ranger said he wasn't doing it in a particularly threatening way. However he did vocalise the "I'm not threatening you" noise - a sort of prolonged low clearing the throat - to let the gorilla know we weren't a threat. Nevertheless we thought it prudent to move back a bit and make our way around him. In doing so we came across Kwitonda himself, sitting by himself munching quietly on bamboo shoots. While I was standing there looking at him goggle-eyed, he caught my eye and we stared into each other's eyes for at least a minute. What an amazing experience! Not at all threatening, just curious.



There was a two-year old playing near his mother, and at one stage he rolled away from her and rolled to withing a couple of feet of us. There was also a mother nursing slightly apart from the group. It was while we were looking at her that a squabble broke out among the young males behind us. Lots of screeching and thrashing about in the bamboo, and in an instant the mother picked up her baby and shot straight past us to see what was going on, missing us by about a metre. Have to admit the thought of all those kilos of gorilla flesh fighting less 20 feet away gave us quite a start. But the ranger didn't appear worried as he said it was just a family spat and nothing to do with us. Eventually Kwitonda waddled over to sort it out and
the ruckus soon subsided and they all nestled down for a lovely grooming session and a bit of a nap.

Eye contact with Kwitonda

One of the young males was scratched in the melee and the rangers said they would have to keep on it to see if would need medical attention.

Madonna and Child?

By this time our hour was up, and we had to reluctantly make our way back down the trail, across the buffalo wall and out of the forest. The middle truck had become unbogged, but on the way back it had a flat tyre, much to the amusement of the hundreds of local kids.

Which one is which?

Back at the cultural village, the Queen (who did the gorilla trek last year) had done a tour of the local village, including a visit to the school and to one of the local houses, and exploring a cave that used to be used by the king (the real one, when they had one) and by the poachers to sneak into the forest. It had poured rain in the village, but fortunately my trek had been rain-free.



Back to Kigali in the afternoon - an uneventful trip and both the King and the Queen slept through most of it. The only stop was to buy eggs from a roadside stall. The eggs came in a very attractive bundle made from banana leaves. Also on offer were live rabbits and chooks, but we decided against either of those.

PS:  Not sure if you've noticed, but if you click on any of the photos you can see a bigger version. Then just use the back arrow to return to the blog.