GORILLAS

Thursday night I went to the airport in Kigali to meet Sam. She had had quite the experience in getting to Rwanda... At the Kili airport in Arusha, precision air said they had no record of her buying a ticket, even though she had already bought and paid. Then they would take a credit card so she could buy a ticket and had no ATM at the airport, so she got driven to an ATM to buy her ticket. So by the time she arrived, she was pretty frustrated with the whole thing.

We dropped her stuff at the hostel and went to the Chinese restaurant just up the street for dinner. It was actually really good, and we had a very nice time catching up. In the morning, our driver, Jean-Louis, arrived to take us to the gorillas! But first we went to the Kigali Memorial Center (genocide museum), which was a very nice museum and an interesting and sobering experience. Following the museum, we went to try an ATM for Sam, but she has MasterCard, and apparently everywhere n Rwanda only takes visa. It was another element of frustration to the trip. Also, since it was good Friday, a lot of stuff was closed, and the. Saturday was the national holiday (beginning a week of genocide remembrance), and Sunday being Easter, we knew she wouldn't be able to get money out later. Ugh.

The drive out to volcanoes national park, was just stunning. Jean-Louis was super awesome and kept stopping so we could take pictures. Once we had checked into our hotel, we drove out to lakes bulera and ruhondo. The view from the mountain top we were on was amazing. The two lakes are separate, but they have built a sort of dam so that it provides hydroelectric power. Bulera is at higher elevation, so the water flows down Into Ruhondo. We also got to see the super nice lodge at the top of the mountains where they had a fireplace and it's $600/person per night. Unbelievable.

We went to dinner at a place called Hotel Muhabera that was in the lonely planet guidebook and just down the street from where we were staying. It was pretty good, and we were super tired and knew we had to get up at 5:45 so it was an early night.

Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and had breakfast, then left for the gorilla tracking! You drive first to the park headquarters, where they split everyone into groups and tell you which group of gorillas you will be tracking. We were assigned the Titus group (the head silverback, titus is pictured on the Rwandan 5000 franc note, which is pretty cool). Then you drive to the actual place where your tracking starts. They have trackers out in the mountains early in the morning so that when you start tracking, they tell your guide where the gorillas are and they can basically take you right there. Or group was 2 older women from Finland, and a younger couple (the guy as from "nowhere" and the woman from Switzerland). Well the two old women turned out to be a problem, as one of them literally couldn't hike more than 30 seconds without a break. The one guy had a flight to catch and Sam and I were going to lake kivu and wanted to get there before dark. So after we kept stopping repeatedly, we convinced the guide to let us split into two groups. So the younger couple, Sam, and I went ahead and another tracker met us at the gate to the park. This was after hiking for about 2 hours. Then we finally entered the park, and hiked for maybe another 20 minutes or so, before we got to the point where they go over gorilla etiquette with you again, and you leave your bags and walking sticks to actually go see the gorillas.

Gorilla etiquette means no eating, spitting, drinking, pointing at the, flash photos, etc near the gorillas. When they approach you you're not supposed to touch them (but they can touch you, I called this the "strip club rule"). If they come near you, you squat down and make this grunting noise that tells them you respect them and bring no harm.

The first one we saw was a blackback - a male who is not the dominant male. Even this guy was just huge. They're so big, especially when they stand up, you really can't help but to be a little afraid!
Our first


blackback:

The we saw the silverback next, even more huge!



We saw about 8 in total I think, including a mom and her 3 week old baby:



It was just an insanely incredible experience... About which I'll add more later, since I paid for one hour of Internet at the Hotel des Mille Colines, and it's almost up! Also will write about lake kivu, gisenyi, seeing the DRC, and hanging out at the "Hotel Rwanda", where I am now!

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