Gorillas! and the Icy'Ibwacu Village

A once in a lifetime experience....for me emphasis on once!

Gorilla passes cost $750 each for non residents and $375 for residents. Luckily Paul and I got resident visas and saved $750.

Once again we found ourselves at the crazy bus station in Nyabagogo for the 2 hour drive to Musanze, the start of the gorilla tour. Dan was with us and he was pretty amazed at the crowds and the general controlled confusion. We're getting used to it though and have now figured out the best way to deal with the crowds and the buses is to pick a clean, relatively comfortable looking bus going to our destination, and grab a good seat on it. The buses do not leave until every seat is full and sitting in a middle seat is really uncomfortable for 2 hours. Also they have a funny habit of closing all the windows if there is a drizzle or just to keep the breeze out. For me that is a killer. Especially since there are many "pungent" people riding the bus. Gotta have that window open!! They are happy to buy your ticket for you if you are already on the bus and we just read and people watch til take off.

Dinner in Musanze was surprisingly good. Unbelievably we found a little restaurant across from our hotel that makes homemade pasta. Go figure.

We were picked up at our hotel at 6:30am for a 40 minute drive to Volcano National Park in search of the gorillas in a Range Rover. The drive was really nice with several volcano's looming in the background.

Once at the park we met up with the all the other trekkers, where they split us up into groups of 8 or so, gave us a guide and assigned us a tracker and a specific gorilla family. That along with a cup of black coffee and a tribal dance send off and we were on our way.

Tribal send off

Paul and Dan before the hike

drummers and musicians

send off song

Our guide Francoise in green and porters in blue

They dry the chrysanthemums and use for natural insect repellent

The guide leads the way, the trackers are in the bush looking for the gorillas and the porters carry your gear. We had a bottle of water each and a muffin. Not much gear. Each group is a assigned a gorilla family and you head out to the point of your trek.
We started across a field of chrysanthemums, an easy walk, until we reached the entry point. The forest is primarily bamboo, nettles, very tall trees and lots of underbrush.

A small clearing in the dense brush. I hated being in the thicket where you couldn't see the sky

 Our guides led the way by hacking through the underbrush to create a path of sorts. It was very dense and it felt like we were bent over most of the time pushing the brush/nettles out of way and trying to find footing in lots of deep mud. You really couldn't stand up and hike and look around you. It rained quite a bit at first and between the heavy rain, slippery hilly terrain, and the ants and nettles I was more or less just tolerating the hike. It was steep going and we hiked laterally and up for almost 2 hours until we were told the gorillas were close by. I was first in line and our guide was a little ahead, then, just as I stepped out into a small clearing there was a really big gorilla just sitting there in front of me, not doing anything, just sitting in the rain. That was pretty exciting!

Sitting in the rain

This was a big guy just watching us

Our whole group filed around the gorilla in a wide semi circle standing quietly at the edge of the clearing and we stood there for about 5min taking pictures. Paul leaned over and said, if this is all there is, it's not worth $750! That was not all there was!

The rain stopped and the trackers beat around the bushes so to speak and soon we had lots of gorillas in our little clearing. Then the excitement began.

A little scary

The really big leader of the pack

Number two guy and pregnant gorilla

  First the "number three" male gorilla came out, beat on his chest and jumped around a little. Then a pregnant gorilla sort of trudged into the clearing and laid down in the brush just hanging out. A few other gorillas came out and they all sat around eating, scratching, etc doing gorilla things. Then a really big gorilla, "number two" male came lumbering in.

staying dry

He went up to the pregnant one and started smacking her around. (our guides explained that he was irritated because she was pregnant by number three male.) Then number three comes over to the rescue and all three of them start with a little fisticuffs. Let me tell we were in a clearing that it wasn't that big and having 3 big gorillas smacking each other around was a bit nerve wracking. Now we have big gorilla number two diagonally opposite me in the clearing. He beats his chest again then takes off across the clearing directly at me. I really didn't know what to do or expect. I was concerned he was going to smack me too!! He stopped and turned around just as he reached me and stayed there, his leg touching my leg, and glared at the group. Geez!

Mama and baby

 Of course the guides said not to worry they were just playing, BUT, put down your cameras and quietly take a few steps backward. Not so easy to do on a steep, slippery hill, but believe me we stepped back. Then all three fighting gorillas dashed off down the hill, squeezing into the small space between me and Dan and Paul. So much action!

rolling around and hanging out

Paul standing in the clearing

The funny part is they warned us not to get too close and certainly don't feed them or touch them. I don't think the gorillas got the memo. I was a little concerned because one of the trackers had a gun and we were told that if anything happens they would most likely shoot us before they would shoot a gorilla!

Well once the excitement died down, we continued to stand there watching the gorillas for about an hour and then we hiked back down. After awhile the leader of the pack, a huge silver-back, came in walking on hands and legs and boy was he big. I was happy he wasn't part of the "playing" earlier or we could have all fallen down the hill! There was a new baby and nursing mom and several young gorillas so we were pretty impressed with the whole experience by then. As an added treat the guide told us we were really blessed because the entire time we hiked through the forest we could see the golden monkeys way high up in the trees. Usually you have to pay another $100 to hike up and see the monkeys!

These bad boys were really high up!!

After the gorillas it's typical for people to visit the Iby'Iwacu Cultural village located just outside the park. I went the day before and enjoyed learning about the old Rwandan Culture. What I didn't know was that people don't really live there and that the guides call and make a reservation for you. I was the ONLY ONE there and they did their thing in the poring rain just for me! They were great. It's a model of the typical forest village with all the aspects of everyday life enacted out. Thank goodness the rain stopped, these poor warriors were freezing.

A wet and rainy welcome at the Iby'Iwacu Cultural Village

Fierce but friendly warriors

The Medicine Man putting out his herbs

Using a mortar and pestle he made a  concoction

The bellows of animal skin and wood used to heat the metal

Working the bellows

Making a knife hammering the hot metal

Grinding sorghum on a stone for flour

Demonstrating his bow and arrow

 This guy was really funny. He gave me a lesson in using this bow and arrow. It was not nearly as easy to keep the arrow on the bow and keep the string taut as I thought it would be.

Lesson in progress

He loved posing for the camera!

  The village was really nice but I felt a little anxious the whole time being the only guest. At the end they asked what I thought of the whole experience. They described themselves as poachers and in fact they were. This group lived in the area of the National Park  until the war was over and the country began preserving the gorillas and park land. They brainstormed and came up with creating this village to preserve their customs and give them an opportunity to earn money. Village entrance fee is $20 and they sell some of their crafts in their "general store"

General store

They re-enacted a wedding scene: Lots of pressure on the groom. If he doesn't perform he has to leave the marriage hut and go see the medicine man. They have a traditional version of Viagra!

The bride is carried in by family/friends

The procession bearing gifts (typical Rwandan baskets)

Bride is brought to the marriage hut

everyone waits outside until the bride indicates

 her husband has successfully consummated the marriage!

And of course finished off the tour with a drum concert and dancing.

The dancing begins

Intore warrior dance

the women are so graceful-farewell dance

It was a big two days and we were happy we went. Not sure I'll go looking for gorillas again, but we have a bigger safari on the horizon in South Africa so I'm sure I'll more animal stories to write about.