It was never my dream to one day go gorilla trekking but as it turns out it really should have been. Visiting the mountain gorillas has been the highlight of my trip to Rwanda so far! It's not surprising that the gorillas are the number one tourist attraction for Rwanda and they continue to attract tourists even though the permits are $500/person for one day! When I heard the price I was skeptical if was worth the cost but it definitely was worth every penny.
In order to reach the gorillas you have to travel to Volcanoes National Park in the north west region of Rwanda. Hiking to get to the gorillas can take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours depending which family of gorillas you want to see - there are around 7 families open for tourists to track. The other families of gorillas are for research purposes only and Rwanda has about 250 endangered mountain gorillas living in the national park (the others are in Uganda and the DR Congo). We ended up tracking the Umubano group ("friendship" in Kinyarwanda).
We got lucky and only hiked for about 2 hours since the rain from the night before meant that all the gorillas moved down the mountain. Here are some pictures from the hike and a "family portrait" of the gorillas we tracked.
Before you begin your hike, trackers brief you on the guidelines. Here is the list of the Rwanda Tourism Board guidelines you're supposed to follow:
To minimize possible transmission of human diseases, visitors are asked to maintain a distance of 7m (about 22 feet) from the gorillas. (We definitely were not this far away)
If you are sick with a cold, flu or other contagious illness, please do not visit the gorillas.
Viewing time is limited to one hour.
Maximum 8 visitors per group.
Spitting in the park is strictly prohibited.
Should you need to cough, cover your mouth and turn away from the gorillas.
When with the gorillas, keep your voice low.
Try not to make rapid movements that may frighten the gorillas.
If a gorilla should charge or vocalize at you, do not be alarmed, stand still, look away from the gorilla and follow your guide’s directions.
Do not litter.
You can tell they are pretty strict about seeing the gorillas! When we reached them I was truly amazed by how close we were allowed to get. I was also surprised that the gorillas were not bothered at all by our presence and didn't seem to care that we were taking a zillion pictures of them. They simply went about their day - mostly cleaning each other, eating, and caring for the young. The most amazing thing was that their mannerisms are just like ours - you can clearly see the similarities between human and gorilla. You could tell they have personalities and relationships with one another by their interactions. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip -
Momma and baby
Manu and I in front of the alpha male silver back gorilla
Taking pictures while he has his lunch (gorillas are vegetarians)
Cute little baby gorilla
The family
My favorite little kid gorilla
The alpha male silver back - he clearly looks like a leader.
In case these pictures don't capture the awesomeness of the gorillas, here is a short video I took! In the video you can see my favorite "kid" gorilla. He was very interested in the tourists and came close to us every few minutes before the tracker would scare him away. Five minutes later, he would forget the tracker scared him away and try to come close to us again. It was very cute.
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