Chapter Nineteen: Rwandan Gorillas
Another COVID test today
12.15.2021 - 12.15.2021 65 °F
View Morocco + Uganda + Rwanda on paulej4's travel map.
Up well before dawn so we can depart Virunga Lodge at 6:00am sharp. The morning is lovely as we make our way to the Volcanoes National Park headquarters at Kinigi. There are 96 trekking slots available (which normally sell out) but there are only about twenty trekkers here today. COVID and Omicron have put tourism on the mat. It is a shame as so many people here rely on our dollars as their only income.
My group consists of, from Virunga Lodge, Matt, Safi and Safi's mom Fiona. Joining us from another lodge are Judi and Aaron from Connecticut; our leader is Felicien. He tells us that we will be tracking the Hirwa Group which roam the foothills of Mount Sabyinyo all the way to the side of Mount Gahinga. The latest update puts 14 members in this group including a rare set of twins, now ten years old. Our ranger, Jovit, tells me that there is one young (16 years old) silverback and his five wives and their 4 babies. Sounds good to me.
We drive from the HQ to a jumping off point at road's end where I employ Canisius as my porter. Soon, we are off. Today will be different, I can quickly tell, because the ground underfoot is soggy, sloppy mud. We first must traverse a large agricultural section before we reach the 4-foot-tall rock wall that is the line of demarkation between civilization and wild country.
Here, unlike my previous surroundings, the vegetation is dominated by bamboo. That's good in that it gives us a handhold and bad in that it is dense. Imagine a slalom ski course with all the gates a downhill skier must negotiate. Now, twist your brain so that the snow becomes mud, downhill becomes uphill and the width between the gate markers shrinks from thirteen feet to thirteen inches.
There is an armed ranger at point, then a couple of more rangers to cut a path, then Felicien, then my three lodge mates and their three porters, then Judi and Aaron who share a porter, then Canisius, then me and finally Jovit at the rear. There is much slashing of machetes requiring our forward progress to stall as we hack a path. The terrain is rugged but not nearly so much as days one and two and three in Uganda. The mud, however, makes up for the lack of slope. We are climbing, to be sure, but not so much that we have to stop to catch our breath even at this 7,000 foot altitude. Poor Judi is the exception as she is suffering from a bit of altitude sickness but, strong trooper that she proves to be, she is not to be denied. One comes half way round the world and has one day allocated to visiting gorillas in the wild; well, one does not miss that easily. She fights through it and is in a way saved by the hacking which provides her--and the rest of us--with frequent catch-your-breath rest stops.
We are on the foothill slopes of Mount Sabyinyo and it has been raining--not just today but everyday. There are multiple rivulets and streams of water coming down the hill and we must negotiate a crossing of each one. Our leaders are stymied by one stream of water and mud that is quite wide--to wide to get across without a bridge. So, the construct one. Large bamboo shoots are hacked down, ones long enough to span the gap. Then more, them more and then, the coup de resistance, a railing along one side. We cross, carefully, with our feet "sideways" upon this makeshift bridge.
Then it is more of the same, each of us occasionally getting out feet caught in the mud and having to pull the offending shoe or boot from the mud creating an audible sucking sound as we got free. I alone have muck boots while the rest of my group is in hiking shoes. I am lucky. We all have gators covering the our legs from knee to shoe top but that doesn't keep water from their feet. Mine stay dry--except for the obligatory perspiration that is generated as we walk, climb, negotiate rocks and limbs, duck beneath low hanging canopy branches and generally struggle up, up, up.
We assumed that the Hirwa clan would be found quickly but that proved not to be the case. Apparently, another family blocked their supposed relocation route from the night before so they went where they were not expected to go. We took one track and then another before Felicien tells us to stop. We don our masks--we get to pocket them during the hiking--stash our walking sticks (less they be perceived by the gorillas as a threat), assign our backpacks and water bottles to our porters and take off uphill. We know that we are very close.
Soon, a blackback (adolescent male) is at my right hand side about six feet away. Judi had missed him in the dense foliage until I tapped her on the shoulder. It was her first time seeing a gorilla in the wild and her altitude sickness was cured by a rush of adrenaline. A bit farther up, a mother cradling a baby and another family member groomed each other and dozed, again in dense brush. Then, around the corner and down a narrow row of crumpled brush was the silverback, a female and another baby--this one older than the last one. Now all my group is feeling what I felt a week ago: a sense of wonder and amazement that, "here we are, among these greatest of apes." They are the length of your living room couch away and they are not bothered by us in the least.
There is much shooting of pictures and movies but, this time, I allow myself to just "be." Of course I pull out the iPhone to record a movie or two but I left the Nikon at the lodge. I want to realize rather than digitize this hour. A young one appeared from my right and, per protocol, I stepped back (as far as possible in this muddy dense foliage) to let it pass. It decided to tug on my pants along the way. So Cool.
Then it began to sprinkle rain. The sprinkle turned into a shower. As a group, we ducked beneath the same tree canopy where the silverback napped. None of us had our rain gear on. But, to save the day, our porters soon arrived with our backpacks and we all retrieved whatever we had but, by then, our clothing was damp if not wet. Felicien had a poncho and rain pants--more prepared than the rest of us. We got very wet. Then, then the thunder clapped to let us know we were in a storm.
The silverback and the other family members, two of whom had climbed a tree right behind us, sought what shelter as they could find. It was clear that they do not care for the rain. Hunched over, tightened into as small a ball as they could, mothers sheltering babies, they tolerated the rainstorm because they had no choice.
We had another ten minutes left in the one hour maximum time we could spend with them but a unanimous verdict was reached: retreat. Felicien said that the good news was that we would take a shortcut down the foothill. There was no need to zig zag on the path we took climbing up here, we just went straight down. That required more hacking, negotiating more mud and ducking beneath more branches--made more challenging now because it was raining. The four trackers that had been ten minutes ahead of us in finding this family were left behind in the rain with only our gratuities to warm them.
Before we reached the rock wall that was the agriculture land boundary, the rain mercifully stopped.
There was still a good distance to travel, however, through the fields of potatoes, corn, beans and more. Due to the amount of moisture that happens here, crop rows are exaggerated. Think of the row of plants you would normally see and then put that on steroids--make the hills higher and wider and the space between those rows more like ditches. A skier would think of negotiating moguls coming down the mountain but the snow here is mud.
It was slippery and humid beneath our rain gear as the sun appeared but, as is the case coming from a gorilla experience, the emotion of the event carries you onward.
Driver/guide Sam awaits at the bottom of the hill. I overtip Canisius. He had kept me from falling more times than I can count. He knew exactly when to hold his hand out for mine to steady me. Once, while holding his hand, I actually kept him from falling. We shared a laugh. He had a knack for using his walking stick to motion to me where I ought to put my right foot and then my left to keep from slipping or sinking.
Another gratuity was presented to Felicien for our ranger team to share. Then, we took a few obligatory photos and it was done. I looked at my watch: 1:00pm. I was famished and tired and muddier than I have been since I was a kid but Sam didn't mind as he ushered me into a comfy seat in the Nissan and began getting me homeward bound.
Along the way, we passed "The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's Ellen Degeneres Campus" now nearing completion. It is large and beautiful and well designed and on her nickel. Thanks, Ellen. I dug into the ham and cheese sandwich the lodge had backed for me with gusto as Sam asked me if I had enough cash left to stop and get a covid test. It seems that I need another fresh covid test result before I will be allowed into our next lodge and national park, the final stop of this marathon. I did.
I got my PCR test and we commenced the hour long drive back up the adjoining mountain to Virunga Lodge.
Leonard greeted the Nissan after we climbed the rocky steep road the lodge, helped me remove my muddy boots and gators and provided me with clogs to wear to my banda. He wanted to take a lunch order from me but I told him the sandwich had taken care of my appetite--the only thing I wanted to do was get out of my wet clothing and into a hot shower. He said he would be back in fifteen minutes to collect my disgusting clothing and get it laundered while he cleaned my muck boots. This is, to be sure, full service trekking.
I make my way to the main lodge to write this account, tired but fulfilled as this is my final day of gorilla trekking on this marathon African adventure. I write this sentence as the clock strikes five. The valleys on either side of us are filled with mist, the temperature is in the mid-sixties and a slight breeze brings animation to the tree limbs. The lodge is quiet save for the clicking of my keyboard and all is well.
I'm late posting this because of a late dinner with Fiona, Safi and Matt; new friends from Egypt and Ireland and Scotland and, well, we're pretty international here. Fine folks; I'll miss them when they check out tomorrow morning.
