Rwanda 2010 – Day 7

“When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.” – Dian Fossey
And a sound sleep it was. I slept so great that I didn’t even hear the alarm on my wristwatch go off – and I never sleep through an alarm! We had another 5 am wake-up call, as we were going on our 2nd gorilla trek this day. Tea was brought in right on time again, and then we went up to breakfast. This morning was incredibly clear, and we could see all 5 Rwandan volcanoes of the Virungas.

The three closest volcanoes to our lodge (from left to right): Sabyinyo, Gahinga; Muhabura

The farthest volcanoes (left to right): Karisimbi; Visoke; Sabyinyo

I may have mentioned this before, but I can’t remember what I’ve blogged about and what I haven’t. The Virunga Mountains are really a string of 8 volcanoes, and not a mountain range at all. 6 of the volcanoes are dormant, and 5 of them are in Rwanda. They are (from east to west): Mt. Muhabura (the closest to the Virunga Lodge); Mt. Gahinga; Mt. Sabyinyo (these 3 are on the border of Rwanda and Uganda); Mt. Bisoke; Mt. Karisimbi (these 2 are on the border of Rwanda and DRC); and Mt. Mikeno (located entirely in the DRC). There are 2 active volcanoes in the range, and those are both entirely in the DRC. They are: Mt. Nyiragongo, which last erupted in 2002; and Mt. Nyamuragira, which last erupted in January 2010. None of the mountain gorillas live near either of the active volcanoes.

So now, back to our morning. We met up with Theogene a little before 6 am, and headed down to Park HQ. As we got closer to Kinigi we could make out Mt. Mikeno in the DRC for the first time. The day really was the clearest we had seen since arriving in Rwanda, which made me worry that it would probably end up pouring rain by Noon. On our drive to the HQ, we mentioned to Theogene that we had already visited the Hirwa group on our first trek (before he was driving us), so we’d like to see any other group. He said he knew that (of course), and that Mr. Francis had told him that we wanted to see the Susa Group today. We were a bit surprised, as I guess Sage had mentioned this only in passing to Francis during one of our days with him, and the Susa group came up because it’s one of the biggest tourist groups. (It also has a pair of gorilla twins, which are about 6 years old now. It’s rare for both gorilla twins to survive in the wild, as the mother can’t walk and carry both babies at once. Both of these twins survived because one of their older brothers would carry one of the twins for the mother, and they were always able to move with the group.) And while when we first arrived in Rwanda we thought going to Susa Group would be great, we had learned since our arrival that they are one of the toughest groups to get to as they usually range high on the volcanoes. After our tough hike to and from the Dian Fossey gravesite, we were worried about having an even tougher hike than that, especially if it rained. But anyway, Francis must have mentioned our earlier request to see Susa to Theogene, which shouldn’t have surprised us by this time. Sage told Theogene that Susa would be fine, but we weren’t picky and any new group would suffice. We arrived at the milling area a little before 7 am, talked to Cindy and Chris for little bit, and waited for Theogene to join the rest of the guide/drivers for the pick-off. After the lobbying ended, Theogene came over and said, “Your group is meeting over here”. We asked him what group we were going to, and he said, “Susa Group, of course”. So we were going to see Susa whether we wanted to or not!

We met the rest of our group, which was noticeably younger than our previous groups. There was a couple from Vienna, Austria; another couple from Zurich, and a young couple from Cambridge. No, not Cambridge, England…Cambridge, MA! We asked them about the weather back in Boston, as we hadn’t heard a definite answer about the Christmas snowstorm. They told us that Boston got 2 feet! After everyone made introductions, we chatted, asking everyone if they had been on a previous trek or not, where they’re staying, etc. This was the first trek for everyone else, although the Swiss couple had trekked to see the Golden Monkeys the day before. We mentioned that we had seen the Hirwa group a couple days earlier, and Sage mentioned how the silverback pushed me in the back. The Swiss guy said, “Oh, you’re the one! Everyone was talking about that yesterday!” We were really taken aback, but it proved once again, THERE ARE NO SECRETS IN RWANDA!

So finally we were told to walk to the other side of one of the buildings where our ranger/guide for the day would give our briefing. We turned the corner…and it was Augustin again! I wasn’t sure if he remembered us or not, but I happened to be wearing the same shirt I had wore on the first hike, and it still had the knuckle print from the silverback on my back. So I asked him if he remembered “the incident” and showed him my back, and he laughed heartily and said yes, how could he forget? Augustin went through the same general overview, and then showed us how the Susa Group split into 2 groups not too long ago. It used to have over 40 gorillas and 6 silverbacks; when it split, 3 of the silverbacks went one way (with half the females), and the other 3 silverbacks took the rest. Originally the 2 groups were called Susa A and Susa B, but they renamed Susa B something else, so we were seeing Susa A. Augustin said it would be about an hour’s drive to the trailhead, as Susa’s range was on the far side of Mt. Karisimbi, the furthest volcano in the chain. He then thought it would be about an hour hike through fields to get to the park boundary, and then another hour to 1 ½ hours to find the gorillas. This definitely was going to be a long day, and considering they assigned a lot of younger, athletic looking people in our group, we figured this would be a tough hike.

After the orientation finished, we found Theogene and got into the car for the drive. While we were waiting for Augustin and the rest of the group to head out, a couple of young Rwandan boys walked by our car and started talking to me. They were around 12 years old, and they asked my name and asked what country we were from. I asked them their names, and asked what they studied in school. One replied that he studied mathematics, science, and Kinyarwandan (the local language). I complimented him on his English, that it was very good. He then looked at me and said simply, “Welcome to our country.” I thanked him and told him that we loved Rwanda and the people in it, and they walked on. That really was a wonderful moment, and summed up the people – especially the children – of Rwanda. They all seemed so happy to see foreigners, and were always so thankful for us that we would visit the country. But there was hardly any begging or asking for money, even though the vast majority of Rwandans are extremely poor. (The average wage in Rwanda is only $5 per week.) Considering how the western world totally turned their backs on the country during the genocide, you might think they’d feel antagonism or bitterness toward Americans or Europeans – but that wasn’t the case at all. They were always so warm and friendly, and that encounter with those 2 boys will long be one of my favorite memories of our trip.

When all the cars were ready we headed out on our drive. The weather was still clear and beautiful, and the roads were full of the locals as always. We arrived at the trailhead around 9 am and I (of course) hired a porter for the day’s trip. Interestingly enough, no one else in our group hired anyone, even though everyone had backpacks, some of them large. I think they may have felt a bit sheepish about asking for help, or maybe even a bit of pride involved. Personally, I always knew I could carry my bag, but helping out the local economy felt much more important. (We did find out that the young couple from Cambridge were on their way to climb Kilamanjaro later in the week, so that could be why they kept theirs, as practice for their big climb.) The hike became steep almost immediately, and it didn’t level out at all the entire time. The first hour was through fields of corn and potatoes, and Augustin stopped us often so we could catch our breath in the high altitude. Sage and I began the day at the head of the group, but we soon ended up in the back of the pack, as we were definitely sucking wind.

Farm fields on the side of Mt. Karisimbi

We arrived at the park boundary around 10 am, and Augustin told us that the trackers still hadn’t found the gorillas yet, but they did have the fresh tracks from the morning, so it would be soon. The first part of the trek was through really thick bamboo, which was slow going, and then we hit a wall of REALLY thick vegetation that had a lot of stinging nettles. When you rub by one of the small, stinging hairs on the plant, they actually inject a tiny histamine into your body. The stings actually look like bug bites, and while mildly painful at first, the sensation doesn’t last that long. (Augustin showed us some other flower during the hike that he said has a white, milky liquid that can be used to sooth stinging nettles stings. One of the women on our hike said, “Really? I have some nettle stings on my arm.” So he broke the stem, squeezed the liquid out onto her skin, and she said the pain went away almost immediately.)

The hike continued through really steep vegetation, and my porter ended up helping Sage up the path quite a bit. After about 40 minutes or so Augustin told us that we’d be there in about 30 minutes or so. “That’s Muzungu time, not Africa time”, he said. (Muzungu is the Kinyarwandan word for “White Man”, meaning he wasn’t underestimating the time.) Another 30 minutes of steep hiking, and I was praying that these gorillas were close as I was really feeling the effects of the trail and altitude. Augustin got a call, and he had good news and bad news for us. The bad news was that the gorillas were still on the move, so we’d have to hike a bit longer. The good news is that they’re moving down the mountain…so we would have to turn around and head down to get to them! So we moved across the mountain side, then down through more steep vegetation where we could see a lot of evidence of the gorillas: vegetation matted down in nests and big paths that were cleared by the animals. At around 11:05 am, we looked across this one clearing to the top of a small hill, and there were 3 gorillas just sitting there! We were still kind of far away, but it was amazing to see them, perched on a huge pile of green vines and branches, relaxing away. But we had to keep moving to find the trackers, and about 5 minutes later we came across them. We dropped our bags, as we had done for the Hirwa Group, bringing only our cameras, and headed off to see the Susa Group.

When we trekked to the Hirwa Group earlier in the week, after finding the trackers we turned a corner and came right across the group. Susa was much different; after finding the trackers, we still had another 10 minutes of thick vegetation to fight our way through before coming across the gorillas. The first member we found was one of the silverbacks, who I believe Augustin said was #3. (From some research online, I found out the names of the 3 silverbacks in the Susa group to be Kurira, Kiki and Igisha, but I’m not sure if it’s Kiki or Igisha that was “#3”.) #3 was in a small bamboo thicket, so it was difficult for us all to find a comfortable space to watch him but still keep our distance. After a minute or two, #3 stood up and gave us a bluff charge! He only took 2 or 3 steps toward us and beat his chest, but it’s still an impressive, and tad nervous, moment.

Silverback #3, contemplating a bluff charge

When he charged Augustin immediately said, “Don’t worry, stay still”, and then made calming grunts. After a few seconds #3 went back to where he was sitting again, and we all breathed deeply. A few more minutes went by, and #3 must have made some sort of movement that Augustin recognized because he said, “He’s going to charge again, don’t move!” And sure enough #3 stood up, did the bluff charge again while beating his chest. This time, though, he stood in front of the group, then wanted to move on to another part of the forest. But the guy who was from Vienna was obviously in his way! #3 walked toward him, and the guy really had nowhere to go. Augustin kept saying, “Don’t worry, it’s fine, just move over here”, and after moving #3 walked on his way. Thankfully Sage got a lot of this on video, which is below. Make sure you turn it up to hear Augustin’s calming vocalizations – not only to the silverback but to us humans as well!



After that excitement we moved toward where #3 went and came out into a sunny clearing where he and another silverback (I think #1, Kurira) were sitting in the vegetation, eating. The sun made for some great photographs, but the thick vegetation made it difficult to see many of the gorillas at once. At one point a young juvenile came out to see #3, and then he went back into hiding in a thicket.

One of the Susa silverbacks

Young juvenile, examining the tourists

We moved around a bit, through thick bamboo, finding a juvenile here or there, but the gorillas seemed to be very spread out and it was difficult to view and photograph them. Finally we made our way into a thick bamboo area where we found several juveniles playing! There were about 4 or 5 juveniles along with 2 females watching over them as they played. We stayed in this thicket for the rest of the hour, and while the filming options weren’t great, the gorillas were wonderful to watch. At one point we heard some weird noises coming from another part of the forest. Augustin told us that it was the unmistakable sound of mating! It wasn’t long after that when we saw one of the silverbacks moving along the edge of the bamboo, heading toward the noise. “That is #1”, said Augustin. “He heard the mating and he’s going to check out who was doing it.” We didn’t hear or see any of that confrontation, so I’m not sure if it ended up being a scolding from #1 silverback, or if he simply wanted to see what was going on.

One thing I should mention about mountain gorillas is that due to their diet (almost exclusively roughage) they don't always have the most pleasant of dispositions. To put it more bluntly: they fart a lot. These are definitely NOT the "silent but deadly" variety, but rather loud, and often long periods of flatulence. I clocked one of their toots at 7 seconds. That may not seem like a long time, but next time you're in a crowded elevator, imagine someone letting loose a left-cheek sneak and count out 7 seconds. It's a lot longer than you think! So while we were in this thicket, which had a lot of low branches above our heads, we were quietly watching the gorillas when all of a sudden, right above our heads, we heard a long, loud fart! We had no idea there was a gorilla above us until that time, and it led to a lot of laughter in our group. Even after the wind breaking, we still couldn't see the gorilla, even though it was no more than 5 feet above us.

During the time of watching the juveniles play, I was videotaping the group, when all of sudden there was movement in the bushes in front of us. “They are coming!” said Augustin. “Don’t move!” Sure enough, two of the silverbacks decided to walk through the bamboo, and they came right by me! During the entire time Augustin kept saying, “Don’t move. Take video. Pictures please. Don’t move. Stay there. Video. Photos.” It was quite funny, and if you listen closely to the video below, you’ll hear his running commentary.



When it was finally time to leave (after another incredibly fast 60 minutes), the trackers realized we were stuck in the bamboo thicket. The way we came in was blocked by one of the silverbacks, and the only other way out was out the back of the thicket – which was extremely thick. So our trip back to our bags required a lot of machete hacking, and some serious gorilla climbing skills. At one point Augustin said to us, “We act like a gorilla!” and he grabbed a bunch of thick vines and started pulling himself up a 10 foot wall of vegetation! It was really fun, and you could tell that we were standing on nothing but a huge pile of plants and brush with solid earth a good 10 feet below us.

Doug tries to find a way out of the thick vegetation

We finally made it back to our porter and the bags around 12:15 pm. The weather was still sunny and clear, and thankfully the hike down wasn’t a sea of mud like the trip down from the Dian Fossey gravesite. It was still very steep, and I took a "wicked diggah" on the way down, but thankfully nothing was hurt (only my pride). We made it back to the park boundary and through the fields to our car in good time, and we got back to the parking area around 1:30 pm. We received our 2nd Gorilla Trekking certificate from Augustin, paid our porter, and hopped into the car with Theogene for the long drive back to the lodge. We had our box lunches from the lodge that we left in the car, so we ate a bit of that (I offered my sandwich to Theogene as it didn’t look to appetizing, and he graciously accepted). But before we got back to the lodge, Theogene asked where we wanted to go for lunch. We were confused, as he just saw us eat from the boxed lunch, and we told him we were fine, we didn’t need anything else. He seemed very surprised, and said we didn’t eat very often. I’m worried that Theogene’s impression of Americans that he’s driven is that they eat at every chance they get (which is probably true). But we assured him we wouldn’t go hungry, and we got back to the lodge around 2:45 pm. Grison greeted us (the guy always seemed to be everywhere) and told us that there would be a performance of the dancers at 4:30 that day. We had already seen them, so we decided we’d bag it and try to get some packing done.

We showered, relaxed, gave our dinner order to the chef, and got as much organized and packed as we could for our departure the next day. We headed up for drinks around 6 again, and gathered around the fire for stories of the day. I don’t remember much of what everyone talked about, but Ethel was nowhere to be seen, so I’m sure it was a very fun and enjoyable conversation. The others mentioned that they loved the dancing, but that it was cut a little bit short because of some rain moving in. Because of the bad weather Grison invited in one of the older gentlemen (that we saw 3 days prior during the dancing and singing) to come in and entertain the group before dinner. I can’t describe the instrument he played, but it was a long, rectangular piece of wood that had 4 or 5 pieces of twine tied lengthwise on the wood. He played it like a guitar and sang a song in Kinyarwandan. It wasn’t bad by any means, but Sage and I had already heard the man’s repertoire, so it was a little tiring. However, we sat quietly, respectively listening. But guess who DIDN’T do that? Yep…our good old friend Ethel. First, she showed up late, coming in the middle. And then she sat down right in front of the guy, blocking a lot of people’s view of him. And finally, she spent the entire time looking around and fidgeting, completely distracting everyone (and the singer too, probably). She really was a rude, annoying person.

It didn’t look like anyone new had checked in, but Didas told us that there were 5 new guests who came in late and would join us for dinner. Interestingly enough, they were actually part of a group of 19 who, the next day when the rest of us were checking out, were going to take over the entire lodge! When it was time to sit down to dinner, Sage and I tried to figure out the best way to accomplish our #1 objective – that was to NOT sit near Ethel. If we went in early and sat down, she could easily sit down next to us. But if we went in too late, there might not be any seats left EXCEPT next to her. So we tried to go into the room not too early, but soon after she went in, and we could sit as far away from her as possible. Unfortunately our plan didn’t work, as she got sidetracked, and we ended up going in first. On this night they set up 2 separate tables, as there were 17 of us total. One table had 8 seats, the other had 9 seats. We sat down at the table of 9 at the end and hoped for the best. Then it was interesting: Ethel came in and originally sat down at the other end of our table. The West family of 7 came in and sat at the table of 8, leaving 1 seat. Chris and Cindy came in, stood there for a while talking, and you could see that something was bothering Chris a lot. Finally Cindy gave a resigned nod, came over and sat across from us. I asked what was the matter, and she said quietly, “Chris refuses to sit at the same table with Ethel, so he’s going to sit with the West’s tonight”. Can’t say as I blame him, and sure enough, Ethel came down and sat right next to Cindy. We spent the night speaking almost entirely to Cindy, ignoring Ethel as much as we could, and she ended up talking to the family of 5 that showed up, who happened to be from Mexico. At the end of the night we said our goodbyes to everyone, as we were all leaving at different times the next day. When I said goodbye to Chris I mentioned that I didn’t blame him at all for not wanting to sit next to Ethel, and he said, “The woman is horrible. Did you see her at the musical performance? She blocked everyone!”It's safe to say neither Chris nor I will be sending Ethel a Christmas card this year . We went back to the banda early, finished our packing (our boots were waiting for us, clean, of course), and went to sleep for our last night in Rwanda.