Gorillas

We took the bus out to Musanze (Ruhengeri – like Wales, many places have two names), and then a 4WD up to Kinigi Guest House. A walk along to the park headquarters and an enquiry told us that sometimes there are no-shows for the gorillas. We also discovered that we needed our own 4WD or a driver with one as we have to get ourselves to and from where the tracking actually starts, which is different according to the group of gorillas you are tracking.

Next day, after much patient waiting, we got three cancellations and we were off to see the Agesha group. This is the second largest group, but with only one Silverback (dominant male over 12) and a lot of females which he has collected from Congo and Uganda as well as Rwanda. Where we tracked him down was only around a kilometre from the Congolese border. When females become adult, they generally leave the group; presumably nature’s way of preventing too much interbreeding.

Off we hiked up the mountain, eventually over a large wall built to keep the buffalo in and stop them raiding the villagers’ crops. The first thing we saw was an elephant footprint. This is why an armed ranger accompanies you as well as the gorilla guide. All the time your guide is in contact with the four or so advance trackers who have been following the group since dawn and will stay with them until they nest late afternoon. The gorillas’ day is get up, move and eat, rest for an hour, move and eat, rest for an hour etc until late afternoon, when they create a new nest in the trees every night. The biggest gorillas stay on the ground because they are too heavy. Agesha weighs 222kg and is the number one in the forest – none of the other Silverbacks will challenge him.

After another 30 mins or so, we leave everything except our cameras, as we are near to the gorillas. How near we did not realise until one literally dropped down from overhead right in front of Camilla. Our first sight was this and a few more sat around through the bushes. At this point we thought that this was it. How little did we know! By using a combination of two gorilla noises – one to reassure them that we don’t threaten them, and a warning one should any stray into our group (this was never used) we got to within a few metres of the Silverback. Cubs and youngsters played above us in the trees, showering us with dead leaves. Two played games climbing up and sliding down the bamboo right above Agesha. We slowly mover around the group – we are limited to an hour and each group is only visited once per day. Of the 17 groups, only 8 are visited, but apparently two more groups have been “habituated” – previously they were research groups. In the last few years, the number has increased by 30%, but even so the entire worldwide population of mountain gorillas is a fraction of that of our village back in England.

Agesha starts to stretch, scratch and then suddenly, in a matter of seconds he springs up and charges away from us taking most of the group with him and they are gone with some screeching, apart from a few lazy stragglers.