Photos

About a two and a half hour drive outside of Kigali to the north is basically the border between Rwanda and Burundi, which is designated by a series of volcanoes. at one point, one volcano is actually partitioned three ways, the Congo, Rwandan and Uganda. Just outside of the main village, Ruhengeri, you can choose to stay at a few gorilla lodges. We chose to stay at the Gorilla's Nest, a beautiful hotel with huts containing two rooms each. The hotel is actually surrounded by eucalyptus trees, which you can definitely smell in the evening and listen to them bristle against one and other all day long.

We arrived early in the morning to get sorted into groups. We had met some South Africans the night before in our hotel who were doing the same trek. One of them happened to be an older woman in her 70 with really bad knees, and therefore couldn't make the trek without assistance. Amazingly, for something like 70$, they carried her up on a chair! Our applause go to the guys who did it, and hour and a half up through jungle is quite impressive. The money collected by the porters goes to a cooperative which they have established.

Depending which group you go and visit, they can be anywhere from on hour to 5 hours trek away. Luckily, more because of the older woman, we were assigned to the closer group.

They are amazing animals. Normally we are only allowed to be 7m away, unless they choose to approach us. Sure enough one did and even starting playing with somones sandal - ultimately to see how quickly the guide would scold her! Knowing the gorilla wanted to walk off with the sandal, our guide scolded her, taped her with a stick, the gorilla gave him a look similar to "Hmpf" then rolled way.

There are more gorilla pictures to come so I will save the other stories for then.

-Adam