Greeting the Gorillas

The next day of our adventure took us to see the gorillas in the volcano national park. We had an early start (but not as early as for going to see the Chimpanzees) to get to the park headquarters where we were allocated the group of Gorillas we were going to see. We were assigned the Umubano group with 5 other americans. The road to the start of the trek was made from lumps of volcanic rock, so very bumpy.

The start of the walk was through fields being cultivated by the locals. Then we entered the national park by climbing over a dry stone wall. The first part through the forest was on paths but we soon left them and started burrowing through the undergrowth, led by a man with a machete. After a pretty much vertical climb up a slippery slope we met the trackers who had been following the group. They said the gorillas were just around the corner, but it seemed they had already moved on in search of food. We continued walking and a few minutes later came across the Black Back (adolescent male) of the group sitting on the path. He seemed quite ok with our presence and stayed where he was. Our group began to move around him, keeping our distance until he decided to get up and continue walking down the hill towards me – a rather alarming experience. (The protocol is that you should not be closer than 7m to them but the Gorillas are not told this!) We continued down the hill and came across other members of the group – apparently each gorilla has a distinctive nose print which helps with recognition. We saw a mother with a baby on her back munching some leaves, then the Silver Back (the leader of the group). He was sitting in the bushes looking very relaxed, reaching around him and grabbing leaves to eat. After a while he got up and moved on and the rest of the group followed him. The Black Back tended to hang around at the back – behaving a bit like a rebellious teenager and then walking across the ‘path’ we were following, splitting our group up. I had a few close encounters. The guides communicated with the gorillas by grunting at them – apparently this was to tell them we were not a threat. At times it felt they were more of a threat to us although we were assured they weren’t. We got to spend an hour with the gorillas. They made us work for it as they kept getting up and moving on but it was amazing to see them so close up in their natural habitat and their interactions with each other.