Gorilla Safari in Rwanda
After we traveled through Egypt, we made the trip down to Rwanda. I can tell you, the rainforest atmosphere and cooler temperatures were a much-needed break from the heat in Egypt. We were only in Rwanda for a short time, but I absolutely loved the country. I would say this is one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to. We came to Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas which live in Rwanda’s Volcano National Park as well as across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It was quite the trek to get out to the national park where the gorillas live. We landed late at night, stayed the night in Kigali, the capital and where the airport is, and then drove out to the park early the next morning. While we were driving I really felt like I got to understand more about Rwanda as a country. I can honestly say that this country is the cleanest place I’ve ever been to. Driving along the road for the entire journey I don’t think I saw a single piece of trash or litter. This lack of trash is due to a series of new reform/social practices in Rwanda due to its turbulent history with genocide 25 years ago.
To tell explain a little more background on the genocide: there are two large ethnic groups in Rwanda the Hutu and the Tutsi. In 1994, there was a genocide where the Hutu ethnic majority killed up to 800,000 people, mostly people of the Tutsi minority. The genocide happened over a short period of time and many ordinary citizens were incited by the government to kill their neighbors and friends. There is a very informative and compelling museum about the genocide in Kigali. If you ever decide to visit Rwanda you’ll probably fly out of the Kigali airport so I highly recommend making a stop at the museum, it’s totally worth it.
What struck me about the people in Rwanda was how nice everyone was. We’d be driving down the street and everyone on the side of the road would wave at us and smile. On our way to the national park each morning, the kids walking to school would chase our van and it was so cute! The country seems to have really focused on the healing process after the genocide and from an outsider's perspective, it’s definitely working.
The cleanliness I was talking about is a result of a number of things. First, the country has a ban on plastic bags and people have committed to being more conscious about their trash. Second, and in my opinion more amazing, is the cleaning day on the last Saturday of every month called Umuganda. On this day, everyone participates. Every able-bodied adult dedicates the day to cleaning up the trash around their city, town, and the side of the road. It’s a mandatory event and adults that choose not to participate are fined by the police. This day is synonymous with the meaning of coming together and a way to demonstrate the ways the president is attempting to help heal the nation after the genocide.
Ok now that I’ve told you about the amazing country of Rwanda maybe you can see why I loved it so much, but trust me we haven’t even gotten to the reason we came to this beautiful country. After our long drive to the mountains, we took the afternoon to relax at our hotel and look around. Early the next morning we drove to the national park in order to meet the rest of our group and secure our permit to see the gorillas. Since the mountain gorillas are endangered they are very protected by the national park. The only way you can see the gorillas is with one of 80 daily permits. Trust me, they’re difficult to get since each permit is per person. We had to book super far in advance to get our permit.
The view of the national park from our hotel
When you drive the park headquarters to confirm your permit, you also meet the rest of our group and your guide. Since we had 6 people already and you are required to have 8 people per group, we were joined by a couple on both of our hiking days. After all of this has been sorted you ride with the guide out a specific spot that could be literally anywhere surrounding the park border, and start hiking. For both of our hiking days we stopped on the side of the road and hiked up to the park border and then beyond to the gorillas. Early in the morning trackers go out and look for the gorillas so each group knows where to start but it’s no guarantee.
Because we had my grandparents with us we were hoping for an easy gorilla family that was relatively close to the park border, but little did we know as we started our journey that we were about to embark on quite the hike to find our gorilla family. I guess everyone wants an easy hike, so the gorilla families that are close to the park border are in high demand and you just have to get lucky. Since the gorillas live on a mountain, the entire hike to get to them is uphill. On the first day we started our hike and everything was going well until my grandma started to have trouble breathing. Don’t worry she wasn’t dying, just having some trouble climbing up the hill. We had to re-evaluate how we were going to get my grandma up the mountain since we had only just started the hike.
Our guide leading the climb up the mountain
That’s when our saviors appeared on the horizon: 8 incredibly strong men carrying a stretcher/bed between them. These men were going to carry my grandma up the mountain almost like a queen. Now, trust me, I see the hilarity of this situation. My brother and I were trying so hard not to laugh. Anyway, we got my grandma into the stretcher, started to refer to her as “Queen Cath” and set off up the rest of the mountain. By the time we got to the border of the park, I was already a little tired and we had only been walking over cleared farmland. Our journey was just beginning. We continued our trek through dense forest and up this very steep mountain. It took us hours to finally find the gorillas and we were very tired when we got there; however, once we saw the first gorilla it was amazing! Totally worth it!
There were a lot of rules we had to follow once we got to the gorillas. We took off our backpacks and left them with the trackers. We had a guide with us who led us on the hike but we also met up with a couple of trackers who find and observe the gorillas each day. These people are there also to keep us safe because they have more training. We followed the guide through the bush, and saw our first gorilla having a snack. As we were watching one gorilla another one snuck up behind us and wanted a path through our group. We quickly backed up and it walked so close to me it brushed my leg! You’re supposed to stay 6 feet away from the gorillas at all times but since you can’t always see them coming, and the young ones are super playful, this isn’t always an option.
A baby gorilla with its mother
We observed the gorillas for an hour which is the maximum amount of time allowed under the law and then started our long trek back down the mountain. When we got to the bottom we got back into our van and headed back to the hotel. When we finally made it to the hotel we were met by the staff at the entrance who told us they were worried about us because we had left at 6:30 am and it was now 3:30 in the afternoon. Because we had such a long hike and had issues with my grandma, it had taken us longer than expected to find the gorillas. We had lunch with a great view and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and sleeping to recover.
The next day was pretty much the same thing, except that we had a much shorter hike through a bamboo section of forest which was much less dense and overall easier. Because the hike was shorter we managed to get to the gorillas earlier in the day meaning they were playful when we watched them. One of my most vivid memories from this experience is when the rest of the group and I were in a line watching a silverback eat some bamboo. A silverback is the male leader of the group and is the biggest of the gorillas we saw. The tracker was at the front of the line, closest to the silverback, and was cutting away some bamboo with a machete so we could see the gorilla better. The silverback clearly got annoyed that the tracker was cutting away the bamboo so close to him, so he stood up on his back legs, took both his hands (I know it’s a gorilla but they really look like human hands), and shoved the tracker back a little bit. The most amazing thing about this experience was that the silverback was clearly only targeting the tracker, who he knew. The trackers have a much better relationship with the gorillas since they observe them every day. The silverback didn’t even glance at the rest of the tourists. Also, the push wasn’t meant to be something mean or to hurt the tracker, simply to tell him that the silverback was annoyed.
The silverback
Overall, I loved my short time in Rwanda and would love to go back one day. Seeing the gorillas was truly incredible and something I’ll never forget. If you would like more information about the Rwandan genocide or the day of cleaning check out these articles I consulted when writing this article to supplement what I had learned while in Rwanda.