Mountain Gorillas Trekking - Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

While Uganda’s gorilla trek was very focused on the objective: find the gorillas, spend EXACTLY one hour with them and returned.

 The Rwanda gorilla trek was a lot more nuanced. The trek summoned elements of movie “Gorillas in the Mist”. We walked passed Diane Fossey “lane” to her grave, but we did not get to visit the her grave because our group was a very slow. The guide made an executive decision to skip the visit, because we were running behind schedule. It was supposed to be a “medium” 2.5 hour trek, but it turned into a “long” 4.5 hour trek to find them, because a woman in our group was extremely slow. Once we found the gorillas we spent an hour with them and then had to trek back 4.5 hours. If by myself, with only the guide, I probably could have completed a single leg of the trek in 2.5 hours, instead of 4.5 hours.

 The trek was extremely scenic. Lots of “air” moss was hanging from the trees surrounded by rolling mist and low hanging clouds abound. Along the way we passed fields of fern, and encountered bush deer, squirrels and water buffaloes including an albino juvenile calf. None of this vibe was experienced during the Uganda gorilla trek.

The highlight upon finding and spending time with the Musfuta gorilla family was the ubiquitous presence of the silverback. Unlike the gorilla trek in Uganda, this time we got to spend considerable time with the group’s silverback. We managed to even follow him and his harem for a bit, always having a clear view.

Hiking back, we serendipitously encountered a second group of gorillas walking towards us on the path. The lead junior silverback clearly was upset with our presence on the path. He lunged toward us upon sighting us in his path. Our guide quickly got us to move off the path so the junior silverback and group following him could pass. It was clear the gorillas had no intentions of moving from the path. It was their path and they intended to pass. We stood silently a few steps off the path as they passed. The junior silverback, while passing the guy standing next to me, backhands the guy’s leg and quickly moved away as if he expected the guy to hit him back. It was a bit surreal. I wasn’t sure if it actually occurred. I questioned the guy next to me “did they gorilla just hit you?” He said “yes”. We both laughed. I caught a bit of it on video.