Gorillas in the Mist

Friday morning I woke up in the volcano National Park. The park is located in Northern Rwanda and the scene it beautiful. The area hosts five volcanoes. At the base of the volcanoes is lush farm land and thatched roof huts, farther up is the rain forest that houses anything from elephants to golden monkeys, clouds cover the peaks of the volcanoes making for a beautiful scene. The fascinating mountain gorillas are one of the volcano National Park's superstars. You may be familiar with the work of Diane Fossey. Fossey's famous research was conducted in the volcano National Park and today tourists can visit Fossey' tomb as well as the family of gorillas in which she conducted most of her work.

On Friday morning, I along with three friends arrived at the Gorilla Tourist center at the base of the volcanoes. We were placed in a group with 4 other gorillas trackers and a guide. The guide informed us that we would be searching for Amahoro Family of gorillas. There are 13 members of the family. After a brief lesson on the gorillas, we took off for our journey. We drove on rough dirt roads, through farm land and villages to the base of one of the majestic volcanic mountains. Once we arrived at the base, we took off for an hour and half hike up the side of the mountain. The hike was through dense jungle, which naturally made the entire experience that much more exotic.

Our guide led us to the Trackers who had tracked the Amahoro family of gorillas that day. We left our backpacks and waterbottles with the trackers and our guide led us 50 more yards down a path. We stepped through a row of trees and there in an open area of the forest was the family of mountain Gorillas. We were so fortunate to see the gorillas at this particular place, usually the gorillas are hidden by the trees during feeding time.

We were only aloud one hour with the gorillas, and the hour went by very quickly. During that time we were able to watch the gorillas in the open and also feeding among the trees. The gorillas are such intelligent animals. I was truly fascinated by them. The Silver Back was massive! His head was the size of a three year child.

Two young gorillas were playing very close to us. They were rolling all over each other and wrestling. One rolled right off of the other and straight into my legs. I wanted to scream, but held it in due to strict orders from our guide. Later during the hour we were watching several of the gorillas feed, one gorilla walked out of the forest and straight towards our group. The gorilla walked up to me, grabbed my pant leg, tugged a couple of times and then walked off. Yet another scream worthy experience!

The day was incredible, I was truly fascinted by these creatures. There are only 700 mountain gorillas left in the world. They all live withing Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo.


To top off an excellent wildlife excursion, we me Mr. Wildlife himself...Jack Hanna! Jack frequents the Gorilla Nest Hotel where we were staying. I was able to meet Jack and his wife and snap a photo with him. Jack Hanna has been working in Rwanda with the wildlife conservation group.

Now I am back in Kigali ready for another week of school. The trip was an excellent break from a frequently hectic week. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part KICS. The other day I was visiting with one of my student's parents. She looked around my room and then at me and said, "Do you ever just stop and ask yourself how you ended up in such a great situation?" I do, and I all I can do is give thanks!