Agashya, the Gorilla, and his Women

7 December, Tuesday; Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda and Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda. Today is G-Day. The reason we’re all on this trip. We’ve spent that last 12 days building up to this day and it did not disappoint. When we booked this trip, we all coughed up the $500 non-refundable fee for the permit and to have the opportunity to visit the mountain gorillas in their habitat. That $500 bought us 1 hour with the gorillas and it was worth every penny. We squeezed into a Land Rover to drive about 15 minutes to the park. Spirits were high. You can see the glee and anticipation in our faces. I couldn’t help but look up into the mountains surrounding us, wondering where the family we would visit lives.


Excited, despite it being 6:30 in the morning.	A view of the mountains

This mountain range is the only home to the mountain gorillas and spans Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I haven’t had the chance to verify this, but I understand that there are no mountain gorillas in captivity. The gorillas that you visit in the zoo are lowland gorillas, of which there are far greater numbers. This makes me that much more excited to have this rare opportunity. While waiting at the park headquarters, I span the crowd and wonder if I’ve dressed appropriately. The day before, we’d experienced some intense rain and rain definitely seemed to be looming in the clouds. It was almost chilly enough to see your breath, but I didn’t dare bring too many layers since we could be facing a 2 hour trek each way and carrying everything along the way. Certainly all the walking would warm us up. I did make sure to bring my already-vetted rain jacket. I was brought back to sixth grade and the days of tight-rolling jeans as I tucked my pants legs into my socks to keep safe from safari ants and other insects that might like to make me dance around the forest with their bites.

Only 56 visitors are allowed to visit the gorillas each day. Each group of 8 trekkers visits a different habituated family. There are other families dedicated to research and other wild gorillas. The total number of habituated gorillas in the park is 380 with more in the wild and they were anticipating the results of the latest survey the day after we trekked. Hopefully the number will increase! We soon find out that we will be guided by Dee and we will be visiting Agashya, which means “special”. We are even more delighted to learn that this group is comprised of 1 silverback, 12 females and 12 little ones! We were hoping to at least see 1 baby (or youngster) and now we know are chances are nearly guaranteed. Our guide also explains that our trek should not be too long, which sets us at ease.


Dee, our guide	Mac the Knife, err, gunman.	Eric, the machete man

We cram 2 more people into the Land Rover and set off. The entire time, there is a seat belt jammed into my right butt cheek and I discover an appropriately-placed nasty-looking bruise there later that night. This is the price you pay to see gorillas! After about 15-20 minutes of seat belt bumping later, we arrive at the village we use as a base to start our trek. We gladly pour out of the cramped truck and are offered the chance to hire porters to carry our bags. We’re a young, strong group and we all decide to go it ourselves. We gladly accept walking sticks to use during the trek. Little did we know that we wouldn’t need them. Mac is the tracker/protector that will be working with our guide. I quickly notice that he carries a machine and AK47 machinegun for our protection.


A traditional village gathering building	Chamomile flowers. Grown for use as insect repellent	The start of our trek	Climbing into the park

We walked through some farmland for about 15 minutes and then we arrive at a 7-foot tall stone wall. They don’t make this easy. We have to clamber over the wall, though our guides and protector, Eric, are all helpful. Once inside the park wall, we get our briefing. It’s the normal – stay a specific distance away from the gorillas, no eating or smoking, don’t mimic them (lest we inadvertently invite them to pick lice out of hair or something worse!). The one that surprises me the most is the guidance that we are to comply with the silverback if he grabs our hand. At first I thought our guide was joking, but he was serious. You do what the silverback wants. Stay limp and don’t make eye contact. However, our guide assures us we will be safe and I believe him (partly because of the AK47). Only a few minutes into our jungle trek, our guide points out some signs of gorillas – food remains and gorilla poop. He announces the gorillas are close and we can’t believe we are already that close. It’s amazing to think that these majestic animals are just a stone’s throw away from humans. There’s a bit of mud due to yesterday’s rain, but not as bad as I thought it might be. Eric follows the group and politely helps me through the really muddy parts. Within a few minutes, we meet the other two trackers who have spent the morning locating our family. We can’t believe that the moment is coming! We shed our bags and only bring essentials, meaning cameras. For Ben, that means 2 SLRs, a small HD video camera and the baby camera. After just a few minutes, we approach the family. It’s surreal that we are in the company of these creatures in their own habitat. The order of things is a bit blurry now, but I can recall some of the highlights. Our first clear view is of Agashya, the silverback and leader of the group. He remains calm for the whole of our visit. Luckily there are no human abductions!

We don’t see him move around too much, though within about 10 minutes of our arrival, he gets jiggy with one of his females. I didn’t have a great view of it, but Ben captured some photos and video. One the ride back, we were looking at photos and when I reached those photos, Ben advised me to scroll through the photos quickly to get a good look at his thrusting action. Giggles all around. He also captured the silverback post-coital and noticed that he immediately smelled his fingers afterwards. Not sure if there is a reason for that or not, but it did get a good giggle out of our guide when Ben showed him the photo afterwards.

I spent a lot of my time at the beginning watching three youngsters playing around. Unfortunately, I don’t have great photos because the camera I was using wasn’t on auto focus and I didn’t realize it until later. They were so cute rough-housing with each other and travelling low to the ground in the trees. We got a few glances, but overall they seemed

There was one female with a small baby. It was fantastic to get a view of the interaction between the mom and baby. Surely he already has a name, but I’ve decided to coin him Baby Don King.

We were lucky to get so much time with the silverback. I wonder what he was thinking as he watched us take photo after photo of him.

Towards the end of our time, the gorillas started moving to look for more food and we followed. At one point, Ben was brushed on the side of his leg by one of the youngsters. The silverback apparently took off to check something out, perhaps another silverback that was near their group. We had a few more opportunities to see them, but our time was quickly up so we set back towards our bags.


Trekking through the jungle

We hiked back to our bags and bid farewell to the trackers, climbed the rock wall again and ate our packed lunches while sharing our thoughts about the morning. On the walk back to our starting point, I notice a young boy sitting in one of the fields, just watching us walk past. I offered him a paper bag with 2 uneaten sandwiches and a banana and he seemed very thankful and softly said “Thank You” in Kinyarwandese, the local language. Later, I offer the cookies we brought but didn’t eat to another soft-spoken boy who said “Thank you very much” and also showed me his hand-colored portrait of a gorilla. These situations can be tough. On one hand, I know that by purchasing his drawing, I can make a difference for him, but at the same time, I don’t want to encourage children to make money off tourists and think that they don’t need to go to school. I can say that I have a renewed desire to contribute to an organization like Kiva that organizes micro-lending to help individuals in developing countries to build their own businesses an opportunities.

After our exhilarating morning, we leave Rwanda and cross the border into Uganda where we have to cough up another $50 for a visa. The drive is quiet on our way back to Lake Bunyonyi as we all reflect on this fantastic experience.