Rwanda: Gorilla Trekking and Kigali Exploration! (Plus Adventures in Kenya and Uganda)

Well hello, 2016! New year, new adventures, new logo, new blog.

Keeping a blog while living abroad was always really important to me. I loved having a place where I could share my experiences with friends and family back in the States. After returning home, I've also loved being able to go back and relive some of my favourite memories from my time in Korea and Kenya. However, aside from some super angsty writing on LiveJournal in college, I've been pretty terrible at blogging from America.

But I'm going to try and change that.

I moved to DC in January to accept a new job for my company, but I'm still travelling a lot for work, especially to our implementing countries (Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria currently, with expansion to a few other countries on the horizon this year). My goal for the year is to add adventures in new countries to each work trip. In January I headed to Kenya and Uganda for five and a half weeks to launch 42 new schools, and while there I took a four-day trip out to Rwanda for the first time.

After several weeks of training,I was definitely ready for a vacation. I headed down to spend a night on the shores of Lake Victoria on Wednesday night, and my transfer from the hotel to the airport departed at 3:10am. The flight departed with only minor incident – a crazed old British woman belligerently yelling as security attempted to unwrap and scan the decorative cow horn she had purchased and tried to carry on. Never a dull moment. It was a very quick flight to Nairobi (and one of those flights where you are asleep before take-off and don’t wake up until the wheels touch down) where I met my friend Patrick at the airport and we boarded our flight to Kigali.

Teachers practicing a song at our new training site in Uganda.

New Academy Managers getting down to business.

Teaching practice drills.

View from our new office in Kampala.

The hazy road from Mukono to Kampala.

A very rainy..and then VERY sunny...Grand Opening Celebration in Kauga, Uganda.

View from 2 Friends Beach Hotel in Entebbe.

I’ve wanted to go to Rwanda for several years; in fact I had planned a trip there over a long weekend in the summer of 2013, but several days before we left the Nairobi airport went up in flames and kind of stymied that plan. But in December a friend of mine from grad school was assigned to Rwanda for work, and this felt like the perfect time to take a trip. We arrived in Kigali around 9:00am, and met up with the driver my friend had arranged for us. After pulling some money out of the ATM and getting SIM cards, we were on our way to her apartment, where we met up with her friend Denis who happened to also be in town visiting. After some organising, we walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and then headed out on our trip to Musanze for gorilla trekking the next morning.

Oh hello, Rwanda!

Gorgeous flowers in my friend's apartment complex.

The one MUST DO trip in Rwanda for most people is trekking to see some of the world’s last remaining wild mountain gorillas. There are less than 900 mountain gorillas left in the entire world, qualifying them as critically endangered. They all live in the mountainous area where Rwanda, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of Congo meet. Mountain gorillas live between 8,000 and 13,000 feet, travelling up and down the sides of these volcanic mountains to forage for food. There are eleven distinct families of mountain gorillas living in Volcanoes National Park, which range from 11 to 33 members. Ten of these groups are “habituated” which means that they are used to human presence, while the last one is reserved purely for behavioural research by scientists.

Visits to the gorilla families are extremely restricted. Mountain gorillas share a great deal of DNA with humans, so they are extremelysusceptible to human illnesses. In fact, if you are ill, you’re prohibited from trekking as you may infect the gorillas. In 2009 a mother and infant from the family we visited died after contracting pneumonia from a tourist. In order to limit the gorillas' exposure, only 80 permits are given out each day, which allow groups of eight people to spend one hour with a family.

Two years ago, when Tyler and I went to Uganda, we had considered going gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. However, after doing a ton of research, I felt like there was no way I was physically fit enough to undertake it. So we went chimpanzee trekking in Kibale National Park instead. That trip was challenging and amazing, but I regretted being the one who held us back.

Before this trip I again did a lot of research. I read a lot of blogs that said some of the closer families were a mere 30-45 minute walk, and it was doable for the old, infirm, and out of shape. Maybe I COULD do it? I also thought a lot about the fact that I didn’t know when an opportunity like this would present itself again. My 19 year old cousin unexpectedly passed away last fall, and it has really made me think more about making the most out of the time we are given…since we’re never sure how much time that is. I thought a lot about the fact that I couldn’t take it for granted that I’d have a “tomorrow” that I could push off the trip until, so I bit the bullet and decided to go for it….

…but at the same time, I hoped to be split up from Patrick and Denis (two fit, experienced hikers) and put into a group with the slowest, most uncoordinated people there, haha. I hated the idea of being the one slowing down the group (which I most definitely was – more about that later!) but it turned out alright.

The journey from Kigali to Musanze got off to a rocky start when we got caught in a bunch of traffic related to a road accident. Overall, the trip took a little over two hours. It’s a really beautiful ride, winding up through Rwanda’s many hills and mountains. I will say, however, that it isn’t for the easily carsick, haha. Lots of twisty turns as you snake your way up some impressive peaks. The weather in Rwanda was strange…very hazy the entire time we were there. It hadn’t rained in over a week, which is probably part of it. They also blamed it on big agricultural burns in Uganda creating a lot of smoke. I imagine that on clear days that ride is nothing short of breathtaking.

Musanze is a pretty quiet town. We checked in to a small bed and breakfast right off the main drag, and had a quiet evening complete with a strange but delicious dinner in a hotel restaurant where we were the only people. The next morning we got up, ate a quick but delicious breakfast, and headed off to the meeting point for gorilla trekking around 6:30am.

Sunrise over Musanze.

Heading to the meeting point.

 When you arrive, you check in and show them your permit documentation. My friend had purchased our permits ahead of time in Kigali, and we just needed to bring along the documentation. Trekking in Rwanda is steeply priced at $750, but it is absolutely worth every penny. In addition to getting an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience, I truly believe that the money is going to an incredible and worthwhile cause. The parks service does amazing conservation efforts and really puts that money to use.

At the meeting point there are drummers, coffee and tea, and a general air of excitement buzzing around. People are put into groups of no more than 8, and if you go into the day with a smaller group they will match you with others until you get to 8. The three of us were with two couples from Canada and a younger guy from South America. We were matched with two rangers: Julius and Placide. We were also informed which of the families we were going to see.

Early morning performances.

Beautiful morning light.

The different families live and forage at all different places across the mountains. The rangers take you towards a general location, where you meet trackers who know the exact location of the family that they have been monitoring. If there is a specific family you want to see, you can request that family. For example, sometimes people specifically request to go see the Susa Family, which is the famous family of gorillas studied by Dian Fossey. If you don’t request a specific family, your group is assigned to a family. The rangers compare relative level of fitness/age of the various groups of hikers and take that into account when assigning a group. We were assigned to the Hirwa Family, which is composed of 16 members including one silverback male.

Hirwa family tree.

Silverbacks are older males (they start going gray at about 12 years old) who make all the decisions for their families. Most families have one silverback and multiple adult females, though there are some families that have more than one silverback. They get grow as large as 450lbs, and are solid blocks of muscle and teeth. They are super imposing.

Finally it was time to set out on our trek. The first step is to get closer to the boundaries of the park. You enter the park near where your gorillas are, not near a road or any other kind of entrance. We took about a 20 minute ride over insanely bumpy roads and questionable makeshift bridges towards Mount Sabyinyo. When they say “you need a 4x4 to get to the trailhead” they are NOT kidding. If you need to organise a ride we had a great/very convenient experience with a driver from Amahoro Tours.  

Our driver dropped us off at the edge of some farmlands that lead up to the mountain. We met up with everyone else and had the opportunity to hire a porter. Porters are locals who will hike along with you and carry your bags. They also help you through some of the more ridiculous/treacherous parts of the hike, which is great. The going rate is about $10 for the trip and holy shit so worth every single penny. Honestly, it was a magnificent decision. After people had picked their porters and accepted offers for walking sticks, we were on our way.

Sabayinyo means "tooth" in Kinyarwanda, the local language and is an extinct volcano. 
The summit is the meeting of the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and DRC.

The first part of the trip is a slightly-uphill walk through rolling potato fields. Fun fact about potatoes: their flowers are the colour of the potato (eg- white flowered potato plants have white potatoes, and purple flowers indicate purple potatoes) or so they said, haha. We also stopped a few times to check out different plants that are important to the ecosystem on the mountain – including fresh eucalyptus, which I’ve never seen before.

Julius, our nutty ranger guide.

Approaching the boundary wall.

Finally we reached the roughly 3-foot stone wall that acts as the boundary to the park, and met up with our armed guard, with an AK-47 casually slung over his shoulder. He had killer camouflage…it was impressive. Unlike most parks that you enter by road or marked path, you kind of just climb over a wall and into a gulch to get into Volcanoes National Park, haha. Should have been a sign of what was to come.

Once you make it over the wall, you’re in a thick bamboo forest. It’s easy to see why the similar forest on the Ugandan side of the mountain is called “impenetrable.” We had a short briefing with Julius, and then began the hike.

Impenetrable is barely hyperbolic.

The hike. Is. Hard.

Do not believe any blogs that tell you any different, but at the same time, if I can do it…you almost definitely can too! The hike starts fairly normal, you’re walking on paths first through bamboo and then into the rainforest. It is steep, and sometimes you’re walking on incredibly narrow paths through thick underbrush, while at other times you’re skirting along incredibly steep ravines. At first they tried to make me walk in the front (like a wolf pack where the weakest lead and set the pace) but I hated that and soon fell back with my porter Ellisse and the ranger Placide. My advice for people struggling up the mountain like I was: take lots of breaks, drink lots of water, make use of your walking stick, and accept your porter’s help.

Apparently the Hirwa family is usually much closer to the boundaries of the park – in fact the day before it was only about a 45 minute hike up the mountain to reach them. But not our day. No, on our day they were uncooperative and had tucked themselves away on a significantly harder to access side of the mountain. No simple trek for us. It took us about two and a half hours to reach the gorillas.

The second half of our journey was (quite literally) off the beaten path. In fact, there was no path. There was a guy in the front of the group with a machete that hacked his way through underbrush making a walkway just wide enough for us to traverse. As I said, it hadn’t rained in over a week before our trek, and I’m incredibly thankful…I have no idea how you could (or IF you could) do what we did in the mud. It was already incredibly slippery, and several of the ascents and descents we made were at about a 60 degree angle. Lots of roots, lots of sliding down ridiculous slopes on my ass, lots of leaning on my helpers.

Beautiful, lush forest.

Denis snapping a photo from the path.

This photo from Denis captures the down hill slope pretty well. 
And this isn't even form the top of the hill!

Looking back the way we came. See what I mean by "dense"?

Once you made it down the side of the slope, you had to hike up a dry riverbed. Walking over unstable rocks, and huge boulders, scurrying under an uprooted tree - these were all par for the course. And an exhausting course it was. “Just a little bit further” Placide kept saying. “They are just up there.” Full disclosure there were quite a few times when I really wanted to give up. But I would repeat “just a little bit further” to myself while gulping in deep breaths, and then forge onward. Once we reached a certain point, it was once again time to scale the side of the mountain. But by this point you could see the swaying trees that indicated gorilla activity close by. The rest of the group headed up the hill while I caught my breath, and then I joined them. About 100m from where the gorillas are you have to leave all of your bags and your walking stick. Just grab your camera and go.

Placide in the riverbed.

We had to almost crawl through this little opening made by a downed tree.

Just your average "path".

What we climbed through.

It’s hard to describe what it is like to see them for the first time. You turn into a small clearing and…there they are. The first one we spotted was a mother and a very young baby. I was so struck by how fuzzy they are…I don’t know what I expected but something less fluffy I guess. Then you hear snapping and cracking sticks and realise that they are all around you, just snacking and hanging out. The adults don’t seem super interested in you after the guides make the grunting/throat clearing noises that translate to “Hey, what’s up, I come in peace.” The babies make a lot of eye contact and study you really intensely. We were lucky enough to see four babies, two of which were really rare gorilla twins. So that was incredibly cool. Now for a billion pictures.

Mama and her twee little baby.

Enjoying some sun.

Gnoshing on some leaves.

But seriously, so fuzzy.

This little guy was probably a couple of years old.

Their hands are so human-like.

So inquisitive.

Mom getting some food.

Close up on one of the moms.

Peekaboo. This little fellow is only about 6 months old.

We've all been this gorilla at one point or another.

Our little friend.

Look at that FACE.

I loved their hands.

Eye contact.

Nibbles.

Mmm mmm mmm.

They eat a lot of pants and get all their liquid from plants, rather than drinking water.

Messy, but thoughtful.

Getting cleaned up.

And going in for more.

Pause and pose.

Just thinkin' about it.

This stick looks tasty.

An excellent choice.

Really gettin' in there.

Frothy and delicious.

This lady rarely had her eyes open; she was in a delicious dream world.

Looking for the next offering.

Taking a taste.

Gonna need more of that.

Yaaaaaaas so delicious.

Feet!

So concentrated.

Each gorilla's nose print is unique, and it is one of the main ways 
used to differentiate and identify them.

But seriously....so fuzzy.

Mama mia, this stick is delicious!

Loved her eyes.

Big papa, the silverback, taking a nap

And ignoring us.

One of the three year old twins!

They were like human kids, pushing and playing all the time.

They tell you to stay 7 meters away...but sometimes the gorillas get different ideas.

Twinning!

Deep in thought.

How the silverback really feels about tourists interrupting his nap.

Look who is sort of awake.

The twins were playing a lot...which involved jumping on their sleeping father a lot, haha.

Pause to refuel.

Peeking through.

Oh haiiii!

Climbing up to join you.

Just two sibs, sittin' around..

Getting ready to play some more.

So expressive.

So close, so cool!

The little guys would climb up onto the branch and then push each other / jump off.

Uh oh, you woke up dad.

Peeking out.

He was massive, around 350lbs.

Also they have a  HUGE head.

Look at this giant hunk of gorilla!

See, massive head.

Incredibly imposing.

So vicious...nope...just yawning. But his missing canine does indicate
 that he's been in some scuffles.

He was not super interested in being awake.

Nor was he interested in being polite to tourists, haha.

Super attractive, dude. Love the tongue covered with macerated plants.

One of the "blackbacks" (younger males) lounging around.

The whole harem hanging out in a clearing.

You only get to hang out with the gorillas for one glorious hour before leaving them in the jungle and heading out. The bad news is you have to do everything you just did to get there...but in reverse. It's not as easy as just going down hill, because you have to get back over that ridiculous portion of the mountain you came down earlier! And you don't have gorillas to look forward to at the end!

This hill was my nemesis.

Can you spot the guides  making a path for us up the hill?

Just...uh...follow that...........path.

Up, up, up and away.

Truth time: I had a panic attack going up this hill. I was so tired, and had so little motivation, and I had a bit of time where I thought I actually wouldn't be able to make it. It was so difficult. At times Ellisse and Placide were literally - and I'm not being hyperbolic here - pulling me up the sheer side of this mountain. I am not afraid of heights, but I'm really scared of falling, and this soft ground would just giveway unexpectedly and it was terrifying. At one point I was hyperventilating and had to pull out my inhaler as my hands shook in totally overwhelmed fear. But I made it. I made it to the top, and it was all (literally) downhill from there.

Looking back in victory. This was the craziest, most physical thing I've ever done.

Patrick and I in the potato fields after making it back down.

It is in no way an exaggeration to say I could not have done it without Placide and Ellisse.

After returning to the park headquarters, we got our baller gorilla trekking certificates and headed off to meet my friend and her driver back in Musanze.

I think I earned this more than my Harvard diploma, hahahahah.

We all piled into the car and headed onward to Gisenyi, a town nestled on the shores of Lake Kivu, a huge lake that runs along the border of Rwanda and the DRC. The hotel we originally planned to stay at was overbooked, so we ended up going down the street and grabbing two rooms at the Waterfront Resort, right on the bank of the lake. It was lovely and relaxing, even though the food at the restaurant took FOREVERRRRR to prepare. The four of us hung out and talked over drinks beside the lake that night, fell into an exhausted and achey early sleep, and then woke up and relaxed a lot the next day. 

View of the lake from our room.

Beautiful.

We had a brochure that said Lake Kivu was the "St. Tropez of Africa" which...feels like a bit of a stretch. But it was lovely.

Bye water!

One of the prettiest beer labels I've ever seen.

That evening we drove back to Kigali, and Patrick and I crashed in the Mamba Guesthouse for the night. Perhaps one of my only regrets from the trip is that we did not take advantage of bowling on East Africa's first and only bowling alley. We also ate dinner at a very strange restaurant called The Mickey Mouse. Keep it classy, Kigali.

The next morning Patrick and I headed out to meet Steph (my old roommate from Nairobi who happened to be in Kigali for work at the same time we were there) for brunch. Thanks to a Google Maps snafu we went in an incredibly wrong direction, haha. Kigali is a city built on a million huge hills. Each hill is basically a neighborhood, with its own little main "downtown" strip. We ended up going to the wrong part of town, which meant we did a big downhill and then a big uphill. Upon realising we were in the wrong area, we hopped in a taxi which took us....right down the street from our hotel. OOPS. Brunch was delicious and it was good to catch up with Steph.

After we ate, we headed over to the Kigali Genocide Memorial and Museum, which delves into the genocide in 1994 when between 500,000-1,000,000 Rwandans were slaughtered by neighbors, friends, and relatives in a 100-day period. This museum walks through the events leading to the genocide, the atrocities committed and the global response (or lack thereof). It also discusses how Rwanda has made incredible strides in the past 22 years to overcome this dark period and attempt to ensure it never happens again. 

The museum is powerful, beautiful, and incredibly solemn. Its not appropriate to take pictures inside, so the few photos I have are of the grounds. In many ways it reminded me of the Museum of War Remnants in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. All three act as a powerful reminder of what people are capable of when they are encouraged to hate and demean others. It made me think a lot about this presidential election, honestly. Very scary.

Entrance to the museum and memorial.

Beautiful blooms.

A performance space overlooking Kigali. So quiet.

Memorial mural.

And then, after a quick four days, it was time to head to Nairobi for a week. I worked out of our HQ there, and got to have time catching up with all my Nairobi loves, which was wonderful.

Hanging out with two of my HGSE IEP classmates, Sam and Marisa.

Making semi-successful high altitude souffles for Tyler's birthday (with whipping help from Craigory and Ty). 
It was my first time making them, and high altitude baking is HARD, and they were still delicious...s
o I call them a win. Also I got to make them with two of my favourite people, so double win. 
I love these boys so very much!

Then, my week in Nai was up and it was time to head back to Uganda for the first week of class. Week 1 is always insanely busy, and this launch was no exception, but as always I was overwhelmed with the incredible impact  get to have every day, and the amazing work our staff members in the field do on a regular basis.

On the RwandAid flight back to Entebbe from Nairobi they managed to irreversibly destroy my favourite 
Kenya Kanga Collective bag. Never flying with them again. KQ for life.

Huge new billboard.

Primary 5 pupils in their first week of class!

Beautiful view from one of our 42 new academies.

Hilarious sign at our hotel. Clearly, this is the lesser known Gand(h)i: Indian customer service guru.

Endiro Coffee in Kampal makes the best chai tea lattes I've ever had in my life. Check them out if you're in town.

And just like that, 5.5 weeks was over and I was heading back to the US. I had only been in my apartment for 4 nights before leaving, so I'm still in the process of unpacking and settling, but its nice to be back home, surrounded by my stuff (with consistent power, internet, and hot water to boot!).