There are a variety of tourist attractions in Rwanda that you can take part into and you feel totally mesmerized but none beats the experience one gets on visiting Rwanda gorillas. Gorillas are one of the primates that one ought to visit due to their uniqueness.
So on your trip to these primates; you will be separated into groups of eight. There are 19 recognised gorilla families in the Rwandan section of the park, totalling about 380 individual gorillas, while the park as a whole is home to close to 1,000.
Of those 19 families, ten can be seen by tourists, and the rest are studied by researchers who continue the work so memorably championed by Dian Fossey. Each tourist group is told about the designated gorilla family it will be seeing. Some live relatively close to the park entrance – two to three hours away – while others require up to six hours of trekking.
You might have expected to see the word ‘hopefully’ before ‘seeing’, given that these magnificent creatures are free to roam the countless square miles of densely vegetated mountain at will. But no. There’s a 100 per cent guarantee that those who enter the park will encounter gorillas. You will be shown pictures of the family you would be visiting and immediately you will feel totally privileged.
Not only does it contain the oldest gorilla on the mountain – a majestic 42-year-old silverback – but also the latest addition, a five-day old infant. You will be informed about the differences between the elder statesmen (silverbacks), young, troublemaking adolescent males (blackbacks), and the playful youngsters, who are totally reliant on their mother for the first three years of their life.
Gorillas share 98 per cent of their DNA with a human, which explains their uncanny human-like expressions and actions. That said, we also share a third of our DNA with daffodils, though I’m not sure where that leaves us!
So from here you set off on your quest, which begins with a 30-minute walk through gently upwardly-sloping farmland to the entrance of the National Park, designated by a seemingly inadequate dry stone wall – and a man with a machine gun.It is at this point that you are taught the social etiquette of meeting gorillas.
Generally tolerant and passive, these mammals can nevertheless weigh more than 30st. ‘They may come up to you and playfully punch you but it’s only pretend fighting.
At this point you will be sweating profusely due to the long trekking up the hills and the terrain soon turns to steeply inclined bamboo forests as you climb from the park entrance up the mountain. It isn’t arduous, but certainly strenuous, although you are given regular chances to stop to catch your breath and learn about the various plants and animals of the park at the same time.
After moving for another good minutes, you meet up with a scouting party – three machete-wielding locals who are the key to the gorilla encounter guarantee. Having initially located the animals, they follow them to their home for the night. Since the gorilla family will stay there until the following afternoon, they can then guide visiting groups to pretty much exactly where the gorillas will be.
But how do they find them? By looking for broken bamboo shoots? Tracks in the soil? Using a sixth sense passed on through the generations? ‘No, they normally use GPS. You will then be led through even more unbeaten terrain.
If any of you is worried beforehand that it would be sanitized, well-trodden routes through the forest, you will pleasantly be surprised. Jettisoning bags for the barest of photography essentials, you will duck below branches and over creepers as you make your way towards the last known location of the gorillas.
If am not mistaken, at this time most of your group members will do a cartoon-style leap upwards before relaxing into the seeming naturalness of it all. Then you will proceed waling into a small clearing, spotting the family who are gathered like any group of relatives: dad sleeping, kids playing, mum breastfeeding her baby, teenagers play-fighting.
They will watch you with mild interest as you try to subdue hoots, hollers and squeals of delight at what you are seeing. I don’t know what you were expecting, but to be accepted into a community of gorillas without so much as a sideways glance; to be able to stand within feet of them and get the kind of images usually reserved for a Sir David Attenborough special; to hear them, smell them, watch and laugh with them, is simultaneously awe-inspiring, humbling, mind-blowing and tear-jerkily moving.
The mother of the five-day- old baby will seem to be proudly showing it off to you. Older ones seem to be playing adorably for your benefit. And as the various gorillas move about the clearing, they stroll past you as if you are part of the vegetation.
And so it continued for your allotted hour in the clearing. Then, as if knowing that your time slot has lapsed, the silverback makes a guttural growl and the rest of his family stop what they are doing and follow him into the forest. With that, they are gone. However, the memories of the experience will linger long. Why? Because it is your best wildlife encounter ever.