The Geripackers ©: April 2015

The time had arrived!

We met Rama promptly at 6:30am in the lobby after another early breakfast ready for our drive to the National Park office. Once there and whilst waiting for the bureaucratic permit process and passport checks to be completed and groups of 8 tourists put together, we enjoyed watching the local community dancers showcasing their skills.

After a briefing by our nominated Ranger, small convoys of cars followed each other to their respective starting points for each trek and to join the porters. It had been recommended to hire a porter ($10 US per day) to carry our backpacks, cameras etc. Based on the golden monkey learnings, this is a very wise investment and would be even wiser by days end.

off to see 'gorillas in the mist'

We headed off on our first major trek into the jungle and mountains, again with Army guards, to visit a family of the endangered mountain gorillas!

just about to enter into the park - trek 1.

We had been told we would probably have a 40 minute trek after entering the park to reach the gorillas, great we thought.

It took about 40 minutes to walk from where we had joined the porters to the park entrance, where we entered into the jungle around 8:30am and our guide had nonchalantly informed us we weren’t very far from where the famous Diane Fossey had been based.

Now remember that thunderstorm from the night before, well it didn’t take long to realise we were all in for an interesting time. The track we followed was narrow, rocky and very muddy, slowly climbing up into the mountains. As were moved further into the jungle, we were all trying to step around, over or with legs spread, trying to shuffle our way to avoid the very fresh and deep mud, lots and lots of mud.

after only 20 minutes

On and on and on and on and on we went, our little band of 8 tourists, 7 porters, 2 guides and 2 members of the Rwandan Army, slipping and sliding our way further into the dense foliage.

Yep… we should have rented the gloves also, those stinging nettles were almost bearable through our pants onto the legs, but our fingers, ouch!

The 40 minutes soon came and went as we trudged on, our shoes becoming unrecognisable from when we started.

Rob being helped by her porter

Now I’m not known as a person who walks anywhere hand in hand with other men, let alone in jungles looking for mountain gorillas.

Here I was with my new best friend, Claude the porter, hand in hand frequently, as he helped me up and over muddy rocks, through each steep slippery section of the track or stopped me from slipping over altogether.

We had been warned the gorillas can move quickly and they hate the rain, so the trackers ahead of us were radioing back they were further up the mountain.

To make things more interesting, we started hearing the familiar sound of rumbling thunder as dark clouds started forming above us.

Finally, just as it started to rain, we reached an opening where we were advised to leave our trekking sticks and prepare our cameras to go meet some gorillas. Our adrenaline was certainly pumping by now!

Then the skies opened up with torrential rain and cracks of thunder roared directly above us, interesting when you’re standing in the open with cameras in our hands. Forlornly we all just stood there, our raincoats not providing much protection and our pants, gaiters and shoes all soon soaking wet, at least the shoes looked cleaner. We just waited and waited, hoping the rain volume would let up, which it finally did a little and the decision was made to find the gorillas!

our first gorilla and a silverback

Whilst it still rained fairly heavily, I was at the back of our group making sure the ‘raincoat’ on the camera was doing its job.

As I walked to join the rest of them, they were all bunched up facing to one side and after rounding a large bush, could see why.

Sitting less than 2-3 metres from me behind the bush, arms folded, think hair dripping with water, his head bowed slightly but his eyes watching us all in turn, a silverback, a bloody big silverback!

It was mesmerising to see our first gorilla in the wild. Cameras were going crazy and as we all acclimatised to what were seeing, other members of the gorilla family soon also visible amongst the bushes or in trees, all around us.

There are over 20 members in this gorilla family called Amahoro (or Peace). It is lead by one older silverback but has 4 other silverbacks in it and we soon saw 3 of them.

I had to change position a little further away so as to photograph back towards the first silverback we saw, and Rob stood in her original position next to a Dutch guy.

charging silverback thumping its chest

The first silverback must have become tired of all our attention and suddenly stood up, banged his hands on his chest and charged forward right past Rob, her eyes now very wide. As he continued, he grabbed the Dutch guy firmly, without hurting him, on his thigh as if to say, get out of my way. With that he launched himself into the forest and ripped down a few 5 metre high trees by snapping them off at their trunks, including dislodging another gorilla out of one of them.

It all happened so quickly we were just amazed and in awe of what we had just seen.

Any group visiting the mountain gorillas can only stay with them for 1 hour and the other broad requirement is to try and stay at least 7 metres from them. The latter is fine if the nature of the jungle allows this or in fact the gorillas comply. These requirements just couldn’t be achieved, so for most of our time we were within 2-5 metres of the gorillas .

For the rest of our 1 hour it continued to rain, which caused Rob to get an error message on her camera and she had to shut it down immediately. We watched the family interacting with each other as they continued feeding and were delighted to finally get, albeit briefly, views of a baby gorilla constantly being protected by its mother.

cute eh!

yep... was excited to be with the gorillas

Gorillas certainly have a real presence when you’re in their territory watching them on their terms.

With so many silverbacks in this family, the leader we were told has delegated them family tasks including discipline, protection and teaching.

Despite having to deal with the constant rain, it's simply an amazing thing to do

After our hour was over, we all reluctantly left these amazing animals, our closest relatives, re-joined the porters, packed away cameras still trying to protect them from all the moisture and commenced our trek back down off the mountains.

If we thought it was slippery and muddy on the way up, it was nothing compared to our journey back, flowing water mixing with all the mud on the ‘path’. We were elated with our time with the gorillas but were virtually soaking wet, feet slurping away inside muddy sodden shoes and socks, the gaiters providing no protection at all and were starting to feel colder. Some of our group slipped off into the bush and all of us multiple near misses.

with our porters at the end of trek 1.

By the time we reached the Park’s entrance we were all quite chilled and very tired and by the time we reached the cars it was 4:00pm and our sons’ iPhone provided a few statistics. We had travelled approximately 13 kms, had reached an attitude of almost 2,900 metres and had been trekking for almost 8 hours. By now we were looking forward to a hot shower, trying to get the mud out and off everything, drying out cameras and having an extremely late lunch.

heading back to the cars and then hot showers

As a footnote, after arriving back in Australia, we were surprised to also discover we had trekked across the border from Rwanda into the Democratic Republic of Congo with our Rwandan Army personal in order to observe those gorillas!

Trek 1 route, yellow line is Republic of Congo border

Our shoes were returned by the lodge’s cleaning staff later that night, amazingly clean but still soaking wet, a challenge when considering we had another gorilla trek planned next morning and a flight home a day after. We decided to rent rubber boots and just put up with whatever happens and then tried to dry lots of clothes and shoes in front of our open fire in our room.

In the dining area for our last night, and over a few drinks, we were all on a high and constantly re-living what we had been through and seen. Some of the tourist ‘newbies’ who had just checked into the lodge overhearing our comments, were soon asking us questions about what we had seen and any learnings, just the same way we had when we were the ‘newbies’.

By 6:30am next morning, Rama was again driving us back to the Park office to again go through the process of checking and trek allocation. I must admit to having had a sense of trepidation whilst waiting, concerned we may have a repeat of yesterday’s experience. Even other guides we met whilst waiting had heard about our previous days trek.

Because we were doing two gorilla treks, they try to ensure the 2nd trek is a short one and when told this, well… we could only but hope. Our guides for the day joined us and commenced briefing us on the gorilla family we would be visiting called Agasha (Special Group).

This was another family of over 20 gorillas, but with only one silverback, multiple blackbacks (males), multiple mothers with babies and numerous sub adults. This silverback is called ‘the special one’ due to his very tolerant nature and behaviour.

into the Park...

Despite hands and legs still stinging from the previous days nettles and with growing enthusiasm, we headed off to the appropriate Park entrance, met our porters and were off into the jungle, army guards again joining us.

We immediately sensed this trek would be different. For a start whilst there was still mud, there wasn’t as much of it and the path was a lot steeper initially, climbing up through a large bamboo forest for the first 30 minutes or so.

The path was also narrower and rockier, again our porters helping haul us up it, but at least it wasn’t raining.

We reached a beautiful flat area within the jungle after about 45 minutes of climbing and were suddenly asked to leave our sticks and prepare cameras, huge smiles spreading across all our faces!

the 'special one'

Well ‘the special one’ was certainly relaxed, a lot bigger than the ones we saw yesterday, his huge head face down in the grass as he slept, ignoring our presence. Eventually he lifted his head, glanced briefly at us and put it back down again. Around him were numerous other gorillas also sleeping most of them only 4-5 metres away from us. Some of the sub adults were more active, but barely visible amongst all the bushes.

the 'star'

Then the ‘star’ of the day turned up, wandering out from behind the silverback and awkwardly wobbling its way towards us. The guide asked us all to be still and told us this wobbly young one was about 6 months old.

It kept moving towards us, stopping a mere 2 metres away, 2 big round eyes checking us out before deciding to roll around on the grass, the silverback lifting his head enough to check the baby was safe.

With a few rolls completed, it was time to return to the bushes and start playing with another young gorilla. This was simply great!

The guides worked hard to make sure we were maximising our 1 hour with this family and constantly beckoned us over to where individuals were doing something interesting. The four of us were near each other watching a blackback when we heard, “don’t move” from our guide.

see what I can do!

and off the gorilla went

From behind us a gorilla had emerged from the bushes and was making its way back to the rest of its family.

There was a few metres gap between Rob and myself and this is where it decided to go, almost brushing Rob’s leg as it passed by.

It was too close for our normal cameras, but did get a shot with our ‘point & shoot’ camera as it moved further away.

Not long after this whilst photographing the curious baby swinging around in a tree, an assertive young male decided to test himself just a little, using me as the test. As the gorilla started walking straight towards me, the guide ask me to slowly step sideways and backwards. The gorilla kept coming at me briefly before deciding he had won and waddled past very very close to me. Certainly makes the heart pump.

just yawning

You are briefed not to stare directly at the silverback, the concern being it might take this as a direct challenge and you are also taught to occasionally make a grunting sound which is reassuring to them. At one stage whilst sitting on the ground taking photos of the baby trying to climb on the silverback’s back only 3 metres away, he lifted his head and stared straight at me.

being stared at by a silverback

So I dropped my head, made the grunting sound and stayed still.

When I looked up again, he was still staring at me, so head down again, wait awhile, back up and yep… still staring.

So I looked back at him, occasionally looking away briefly but whenever I returned my gaze, there were those curious brown eyes still staring straight at me.

This went on for about 2-3 minutes which is a very long time when you’re looking into the eyes of a huge gorilla.

Finally, he dropped his head back into the grass and went back to sleep.

Maybe there was some mud I had missed cleaning from the day before or perhaps he was dismayed by my silver moustache, hoping he wouldn’t end up with one, but whatever it was certainly left me with a long term memory.

Amazing again how quickly 1 hour can pass when there is so much going on and we were soon asked to leave this family alone and head back down the path. This had been a totally different experience from yesterday, but both of them had left us with incredible experiences and memories.

gorilla Trek 2.

After a quick lunch at the lodge and finishing some packing, Rama drove us the 2.5 hrs back to Kigali, showing us some spectacular scenery along the way with still numerous little kids rushing to the side of the road yelling, “hello”. Catherine re-joined us at the Flame Tree Hotel for a debriefing and to check everything had gone as planned, which it had, before confirming the time of our flights back to Australia in the morning.

total Rwanda travel

After packing for the trip home, it was time to join Rachel and Jarad for dinner and celebrate a wonderful 6 days in the surprising Rwanda, a total experience we would never forget. For Rachel it had been the opportunity to tick off number 1. on her bucket list, so now she’s pondering what would replace it.

It was sad to say our goodbyes to the both of them as we headed to the airport and eventually boarded our first flight for what ended up being a looong 32 hour trip back home back through Nairobi, then experiencing long delays in Abu Dhabi. This time however gave us a lot of opportunity to reflect on our total time and experiences in East Africa.