Journey to the home of the Mountain Gorillas - in the African jungle

This past weekend, I decided to go visit something that is totally unique to this part of the world: the famous Mountain Gorillas.

This was the perfect opportunity to go, since the weather was great and there was a Canadian co-worker from D.I.D in town.

So Saturday afternoon, after having bought a very expensive entry ticket to the National Park and a two dollars bus ticket, my friend Patrick and I took a bus to Ruhengeri, about 150 km away. Once there, we met up with Belancille, the manager of the Ruhengeri CFE Agaseke branch. Since I did not know the area very well, she had arranged for us to stay at a nearby hotel, had found us a driver for the next morning and had even gone to the grocery store to buy us a bunch of food for the next day’s hike in the jungle. (Hurray for African hospitality!)

On Sunday morning, 6AM, the driver picked us up at the hotel and brought us to ORTPN to register and join a group. Gorillas live in groups and there are only 12 of them that are habituated to human presence. Habituating a group takes more than 2 years.

The mountain gorillas live in the volcanic region near Ruhengeri, which spans across Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The only places in the world where you can visit them safely is in Rwanda and Uganda (Congo is not so safe right now…). So as to not disturb them too much, each family receives the visit of only 8 people per day for 1 hour. Each gorilla has a name and can be recognized by its nose print which is as unique as our fingerprints. We went to visit the group called 13, which had 23 gorilla members in all. In the group there were lots of babies, one of which was only five days old! Each group is led by a silverback male gorilla (King Kong). He is in charge of insuring his group’s protection. Sometimes, males will fight to assert their power. Whoever wins becomes the head of the group or forms his own new group. Although gorillas are vegetarians and love bamboo, their strength is impressive. You don’t want to mess with them or they could break you in half as though you were a twig.

So, led by two armed guards (in case we met poachers in the jungle), we ventured through the jungle, up a volcano to reach our gorilla family. The 12 habituated groups have guards following them 24 hours a day in order to protect them from poachers. This is also how we can track where they are at all times. We had been walking for about an hour when we finally reached group 13. Here I was in Rwanda, the heart of Africa, deep into the jungle surrounded by a family o

f gorillas: The scene was absolutely breathtaking. I saw babies climbing trees, mothers carrying little ones on their backs, others eating bamboo and finally the great big silverback protecting his family. There were no cages, nothing between us and the gorillas….just us and theses incredibly human-like beings, barely 7 meters away.

The experience was unique and amazing. I had seen animals at a zoo and even giraffes at the Akagera park but I had never experienced something like this. In 4th grade primary school, when I was doing a research project on the mountain gorillas, I would have never imagined that I would one day have the opportunity to see them in their natural habitat in the middle of the African jungle.