Gorillas

So, because Thursday and Friday were days off we went to see the gorillas.

We left Thursday afternoon to find a hotel in Musanze. Checked out four hotels and opted for the last, newly opened, appropriately named Gorillas. We know them from branches in Kigali and Gisenyi. We do wonder how a new building can have fungus on a wall. We drove to the office where we had to be at 7 AM, we need to time it right in order to stay longer in bed.

We slept fine even though we noticed the rain which started in the night. The 5.15 alarm was not pleasant. After our toast and bad coffee we went off in the rain. Waited some more at the office, luckily they had reasonable coffee. Notice the importance of coffee at that hour. We were lucky to be assigned a reasonably closeby group together with an english lady we know, with two friends of hers, and a couple from Mexico who had seen the gorillas in Uganda the day before.
The drive to the edge of the park was worse than any off roading we did so far. We abandoned the vehicles at the side of the road, walking was quicker and safer. One guy was left to guard the cars. The walk was a mixture of uphill through fields and jumping over small rivers. As later became clear these rivers were actually the path we meant to be taking.

At the stone fence of the park the guide explained that the trackers actually did not find the gorillas yet. So we waited. The rain stopped, but it was still cold and wet. After about an hour the guide said that the gorillas could not be found. We had the choice of going back and rebooking or going to another group, driving a bit and walking for another hour and a half, and back.
We opted for another day. On our descent we got a call over the walky-talky, they found them. So we turn back. Indeed, the walk was not too long, but with this rain everything was muddy and slippery.

We had an hour with the group. Most of them were in the trees and therefore invisible. The members of the family in the open were: Daddy and two kids and mammy and a small one.
Mammy was grooming her baby all the time and giving it hugs. Daddy just was, one of his kids was grooming him. The other one was the star of the day. At first he just sat and ate something, but later he started to roll in the plants and even trying to impress us by beating his chest. We wanted to take him home. So cute.

On the way back it started to rain again. This time the gods wanted to prove the earlier rains was nothing, it rained hard; big, cold rain. So the walk back was no fun. We were soaked. We just jumped in the car for safety. Just one problem. We had to go back on the same road.
We made it to the tarmac, even though it cost Hazel a few years of her life. The noise the car made continued on the tarmac, it turned out we have hit some stones a bit too hard and the protecting plate at the bottom of the car was dangling loose. We drove with lot of noise the last bit on tarmac to the office, luckily the plate came loose of its one as we did not have any proper tools and the metal was folded over the screw to undo it.

We swam into the hotel where we planned our lunch (is 15.00 still lunch?). Used the toilets to put other clothes on, this made a world of a difference. After lunch, where they seem to think beef is the same as fish, we were nearly human. Two hours drive home, pie for dinner and in bed by 20.00, we were exhausted.

Looking back it was an adventure.




The little performer


Proof


Big daddy silverback


Caring mother