Saturday July 30, 2011
I went back to the house, absolutely exhausted. I showed up at the Centre & they were just wrapping up supper & saying their goodbyes as Operation Groundswell are leaving the Centre tomorrow but are still in Kigali until Tuesday. We’re all going to see the genocide churches tomorrow. Then I leave Tuesday. Tarza dropped me at the Centre after driving back to Kigali from Virunga. I was tired, I spent the first part of our drive back purging bad pictures from my gorilla experience but doing that while driving made me feel not the greatest & I looked up & am so enamoured by the green patchwork of terraces that are layered up the Rwandan hills. We stopped off at the same hotel I stayed at & had some lunch. The road back was good, well paved although we did pass an overturned semi which may have had a fatality. The road down (& up) to the route where the Susa group is so rough it’s amazing the truck made it in one piece. I felt Ike a celebrity kids ran to the road yelling Kazoongoo!(white man). I tipped the guard, porter & guide. I got some amazing photos of the gorillas in fact the hardest thing was to pick a half dozen or so pictures out of 1600 to post. My toe nails hurt from the trek down which was tricky because it was pretty slick in areas. The bamboo Forrest was pretty cool as we went down the trail beside incredibly deep & beautiful gorges. I got so excited when I saw my first gorilla I didn’t even remember that I had the Hero on me charged up & ready to go! We got a lot of video the tracker & my guide Oliver took lots of footage but the microphone was cutting in & out making buzzing sounds. The gorillas, were magnificent. We sat & watched Kurira is the leader of the Susa Mountain gorilla family. The largest of all of the clans & it took the longest to get to them as we were trekking 4 hours, through bamboo forests then through the thickest nettle you can imagine. Kili prepared me for the hike but not the nettle. Kurira’s , the largest silverback, head was massive beyond explanation. There are three silverbacks in the Susa group but Kurira is the dominant & oldest male
We are supposed to stay 7 meters away & the gorillas didn’t really seem to care if we were there or not. They were pretty relaxed, except for a young gorilla who wanted to play & mischievously slapped one of the girls legs (we had a group of 8 people) & then scurried off into the bushes. Matziko (I think that was her name) passed by us so closely I could have touched her. My trekking crew. The park Rangers are heroes, 161 have been killed protecting the mountain gorillas Of which there are about 790 left on the planet. Gorillas share about 97% of our DNA. The two guys I have my arms around (the guy on the right has an AK47) in the photograph with the guides stay with the gorillas to protect them through out the day, leave them for the night then find them again in the morning. This is working as the mountain gorillas are growing in numbers. I had butterflies as after trekking through the thick nettle & underbrush the guide pulled us off to the side & said ‘ok they are just here’ we put down our day packs & wondered into the thick underbrush & it was surreal there was a female munching away on plants about 3 meters away. What struck me first was their fur looked so cuddly honestly like a stuffed animal. Their eyes however were what really captivated me most especially when they look from side to side & they show the whites of their eyes and look so human. It was a dream come true to be a few feet away of these magnificent creatures while they went about their daily business to munch on vegetation which they have to eat an astonishing amount of their body weight, but they just look at us, could care less that we are there & keep eating there plants.
Susa Group; Names of who we saw, Matziko, Kirilla, Umugisha, Baby Impano, Isheyja, Baby Izuru, Tosheemay
Friday July 29, 2011
8:35 p.m. I’m in a hotel room outside Virunga, I am very tired, the ride from Kigali was spectacular. I could have gotten a cheaper ride, but Tarza is a nice driver. We ate at the UTC Centre & I ran into Amy from the group right after I saw Rachel & Jeff, I also saw him coming out of the bank, funny in a city of a million, I saw people staying with me three times. It took a long time to get cash out. The line at the Bank of Kigali was ridiculous, that’s one thing Kagame can work on. I was so happy there was actually space on the gorilla trek, it is expensive but an experience of a lifetime, they wanted $700 return driver to the park, I got it for $400 but could have done better but at last minute who knows? I went to Volcanoes Tours at the Hotel Des Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda) & the girls were so nice. I sat & waited for the driver . I took a motorcycle into the hotel & I am so happy a dream come true to see the gorillas. The whole way driving up to Virunga it was so stunningly gorgeous I only wished that Christie could have been here with me for this
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