Gorillas and Golden Monkeys

In my Rwanda package, I have purchased to trek passes. One for Golden Monkeys ($100) and another for the gorillas ($500). With both treks, you are never guaranteed to see the animals and if you do, you are only allowed to spend 1 hour with certain habituated groups. They have trackers that usually know the area the animals are found after the locations from the previous day. Sometimes you hike less than an hour and other times you may be expected to hike the entire day up the volcano to locate the gorillas.

My 1st trek is the Golden Monkeys. That day, I'm the only one signed up. I have the tracker, the guide, 2 armed guards and 2 biologist with me. The armed guards are there for protection against buffalo and elephant found within the walls of the Nat'l Park. We hike through farm fields for about 1/2 hour until we get to the park wall (to keep buffalo & elephants from destroying farm crops). Within minutes of climbing over the wall (constructed 3 years ago) the tracker warns us that buffalo are nearby and we see one sitting down amongst the trees. He doesn't seem too interested in us today but they are considered one of the meanest animals. About another 1/2 hour hiking through muddy bamboo forests we spot the Golden Monkeys. this is only a small group of about 10-15 but there are some groups of up to 80 monkeys. They are considered more threatened with extinction than gorillas right now and are only found in about 3 areas in Rwanda/Uganda forests. The females are more golden in color and I spot one with a baby. They stay mainly in the trees above so it's hard to get pictures and move quiet fast swinging through the trees so even video is hard. At some points I'm almost crawling through the bamboo in order to keep up with them and due to the rain the previous night, every time I move a bamboo pole I get a shower of raindrops. The hour goes by quickly and we head back. The buffalo is still sleeping in the exact same spot. I return to the hotel muddy up to my knees and am axious for a bath.

The next day is the Gorilla trek. At park headquarters, all the people are divided into groups of no more than 8 people. My group has 7 and one older gentleman use to study gorillas in the Congo and Rwanda back in the late 1950's. We luck out today with one of the more experienced guides. Francois has been working in this area for 28 years and even worked with Dian Fossey. He has a great sense of humour and gets a kick out of acting like a gorilla. He stops along the way to explain some of the food and trees we see and what a gorilla likes to eat. The group we will trek to has 1 silverback male, 5 females and 5 babies and another sub-adult. To our luck he tells us that the gorillas are outside of the National Park area so we don't have far to walk. About 15 minutes later we can see the outline of the park boundary and notice some movement in the trees. There's a mother with a baby clinging to her side. Another one is not far off. We are about 10-20 feet away and they decide to climb over the wall into the park area. We notice the silverback climbing after the females and we follow close behind. About 10 feet into the park the silverback sits down and grabs some branches to eat. We are very close and everyone is snapping away with their cameras. We are not allowed to use flash photography. He stays there for about 5 minutes before finding another place to sit and eat. We are following just the silverback now but you can here the others are nearby. Afterspending time with the silverback and at times he is less than 10 feet away. He doesn't seem at all concerned with us. I'm anxious to see the babies up close and let Francois know this. We leave the silverback and start following one of the mothers. Again we get very close and a few times as we are watching one another mother with baby walks right beside us. I could have easily reached out and touched one of them but we are not allowed. If one of them comes up to you that is fine, we just can't initiate contact ourselves and due to disease transfer they really don't want you to get too close to them. For the last 20 minutes most of the gorillas are in one area that has a bit of light shining through the trees. The silverback plops down, crosses his arms and keeps an eye on use and his family but really looks quite bored. Some of the babies leave their mother's arms and climb up into the trees to have some fun. It starts to lightly rain but most of us don't care about getting wet we are enjoying being surrounded by the gorillas. Francois tells us we only have 2 minutes left and they go by quickly. Just as I pack my camera away, the subadult walks by us and the silverback towards one of the females. The silverback quickly reaches back and gives him a quick swat across the rear end to tell him to back off. We start to climb down and they decide it's time to also head in the opposite direction. It's almost like they said the hours up so the show is done for today, now we can go off and do our own thing. Now I can cross that trip off my list of things I've always wanted to do. Primates are my favorite group of animals and it was amazing to be in their company, even if it was for such a short time. Well worth the $500 in my mind. Some of the tourist are going 2 or 3 times to see the gorillas since there are about 8 groups of habituated gorillas in Volcano Nat'l Park. I'm just lucky that I got to see them so close since other groups don't have the same experience that our group does.