A couple of weeks ago I went gorilla trekking in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda. The Rwanda, Uganda, DRC area is the only place in the world to see mountain gorillas in the wild. For me since I live in Rwanda it cost $250 but for anyone who lives outside of the country it costs them $500. Still $250 is quite a lot for me considering that I get $260 a month for my living allowance. I also had to pay my share of the car that took us to the volcano from Musanze as well as the cost of food and travel. I probably paid around $300 for this experience. As a volunteer you have to be very aware about how you are spending your money because it goes very quickly. I was able get a lift out to Musanze with a friend who was heading that way and stay there for free too at another volunteer’s house. Still it was easily the most that I have spent on a weekend for sure in Africa and maybe in my life. I have heard a lot recently that they will be raising the price soon to $350 for residents and $750 for non-residents in June so I had to get this in before then. I heard that they are raising the cost for conservation purposes. Too many people are going to see them at the low cost of $500 per person and it’s having a bad effect on the jungle. The gorillas can get sick from close encounters with people.
Even with the high cost it was totally worth it. It was easily the best safari that I have been on. On the other safaris I have gone on are in Akagera and Queen Elizabeth I saw giraffes, zebra, buffalo, crocodiles, lots of birds, lions, leopards, hippopotamus, wart hogs, antelope and elephants. None of these animals really care that you are there looking at them and just do whatever they want. They were both really awesome, much better than a zoo, but you are in a car for most of the experience. We got out to look at giraffes and crocodiles from far away and lions from really far away, but that’s it. If you want good pictures of the animals from this kind of thing you are going to need a good camera with a good lens for it. I also went for a boat ride on the lake and watched the animals play in the water. That was cool too but still really far from the animals.
When you see the gorillas you have to hike through the jungle. There is a guy with you with a machete who is hacking away plants as you go and ants crawling up your pants and biting your legs. The trackers go out ahead of you and look for the gorillas that you will visit and then radio back to your guide telling you where to go. We waited for a while outside the park before the guide got directions. Then we jumped the wall and hiked for about 40 minutes to find the gorillas. The gorilla family’s name that we saw was Kwitonda. In English that means humble. I don’t know how humble the gorillas were but they were great to watch. We saw three silverbacks, a couple of babies and like another 13. My favorite were the adolescents because they were climbing on stuff and fighting. The silverbacks just sat around grunting and the guide would grunt back, which he said was them communicating with the other gorillas that we were not threatening. They tell you that you need to stay at least 7 meters away from the gorillas and you think that they will be strict about that, but you get really close. Once we were there we were never even 5 meters away. The silverback was at one point only 3 feet from me and another gorilla slapped Aaron another volunteer with me on the back as it ran by. You don’t need a fancy camera either because you are so close to them. You can take pictures that could be in National Geographic with your standard camera. We were with the gorillas for an hour before hiking back out, but it felt shorter.
If you are trying to choose a single experience in Africa I would suggest the gorilla trekking in Rwanda, but now that the price is going up you could go on maybe two or three other safaris instead of this one that would last longer. When I got home after the amazing experience the road was flooded and I had to wade through a foot of water on my way home. Everyone thought I was crazy and cheap for not taking a vehicle through the water, but its Peace Corps and pretty typical Rwanda.
