Today was a travel day. We were supposed to go see the golden monkeys which live in the same forest as the gorillas but our flight back to Nairobi got changed so we didn’t have enough time. I’m not happy about this. Here is a picture of a golden monkey so you can see what we missed.
We had a leisurely morning. It is their low season because they have a lot of rain. During the low season, the hotel allows locals to stay there. There was a general who stay at the hotel last night. He said good morning to Rick, so Rick asked him a question about the war in the Congo and Rwanda’s role. All of a sudden he didn’t know how to speak English. Hummmm!
We left the hotel at 10am and it was actually sunny! We really loved our hotel, called the Bishops House. The facility was beautiful and everyone was great. We got to know a lot of the staff.
We drove 2 ½ hrs back to Kigali. Along the way we noted how clean the roads are because the government pays people, primarily ladies, to sweep the road every day. We also noticed that in the city (Ruhengeri is the second largest city in Rwanda) they have sidewalks! Pretty much every hill we could see was used for agriculture. The Rwandan people are very hard working. Everyone is doing something. There were bicycles everywhere. We saw many men pushing bikes piled high with product for the market. We saw other bikes that were taxis, taking people from one place to another.
Ladies carry things on their heads everywhereLadies usually are very brightly dressedThey are selling sweet potatoes hereMost of the land is farmed
We saw a lot of flags. The Rwandan flag is green for agriculture, yellow for mining, and blue for water, with a star in the upper right corner representing the country’s bright future.
We agree that Rwanda has a bright future. They seem to have a stable government and limited corruption. They have done a good job marketing and managing the gorilla trekking. The education and medical systems seem to work — a lot to be said, and a distinct set of differences from most of Africa.
We would have like to have seen more of the country and could imagine going back one day, maybe to see the golden monkeys. Everyone was very nice and their English is very good. We have heard some murmurings about limited freedom of speech and their involvement in the war in Congo, but don’t have any real insight. We would highly recommend a trip to see the gorillas, making sure you spend enough time to really see the country.
We arrived at the airport and had to go through a security check which involved taking all of our luggage out of the car and having a dog check for explosives. There was a thorough check of the car. Here is a picture of Hussein, Rick and our car.
Once we had passed through immigration we went to the lounge and got some lunch. We were joined there by our friends, Valentin and Sandrine (friends from gorilla trekking) who were also flying to Nairobi and then on to home in Paris. Unfortunately our flight was delayed until about 5 so we might have been able to see the golden monkeys after all.
Gorilla Day number 2! Again we were are Volcano’s National Park early.
On the way there we saw lots of people out at 6:30am, including lots of teenagers on their way to school, another sign of the relative prosperity of Rwanda and the country’s successes.
It was foggy but it was’t raining. Here are some pictures from the park entrance. You can see why they call Rwanda Land of Thousand Hills.
We were paired with Emmanuel again which is wonderful because he’s a lot of fun. There are only 6 people in our group today, so I guess they don’t sell out on gorilla permits every day. Two of the people were also in yesterday’s group, a mother and daughter from France who we befriended.
Valentin and Sandrine from Paris
We are visiting the Muhoza family today. Muhoza means a perfect ending after a long effort. This describes the silverback, Marambo, who spend many years trying to collect a family. The family was established in 2016 so it is relatively young. Marambo is enormous.
We got back in the car and headed to the trail head. There, I was assigned Alice as my porter. She was an excellent porter, gently helping me when I needed help but otherwise just carrying my bag. The walk up the hill was quite muddy. At one point I was trying to pass over a muddy stream bed. I had one foot on a rock in the middle of the bed and the other on the edge of the stream bed. I was trying to adjust my weight to move to the other side of the stream bed and to my surprise Alice just picked me up and lifted me over.
We walked through planted fields for about 45 minutes. There are many fields of flowers used to produce permethrin, a strong plant-based insecticide that we had sprayed on our clothes prior to departing the Uo. Everybody said hello to us as we passed. The volcanus soil looks is dark and fertile.
This is a (blurry) Jackson chalemeon.Permetherin flowerrs behind the ladies
Eventually we came to areas with lots of bamboo, the edge of the gorillas’ territory. It was much different from yesterday.
We left our trackers and kept walking. It wasn’t too long before we found the Muhoza family. Marambo, the silverback who was HUGE, was sleeping and other gorillas were grooming him. One thing I learned was that gorillas fart a lot, I guess it’s all the plants they eat. There were young gorillas playing and two moms, one with a two month old baby and one with a three month old baby. The babies were very cute. They would move around their mothers with very jerky movements. We watched for quite a while with Marambo slowly waking up the whole time. We couldn’t see him very well but it sounded like a young gorilla had done something to annoy him. He yelled at the young gorilla and then came charging out of the little clearing. We all crouched down and everyone was fine. All the gorillas followed him and, as a young one went by me. he reached towards me. I though he was going to grab my glasses. Luckily, he didn’t. We moved with them and watched them a little longer before having to say goodbye. One take away is how loving, caring, loyal and playful the gorillas are. It’s really both exciting and heart warming to spend time with them.
Here are a couple of videos
We walked back down the hill and said goodbye to Emmanuel and Alice. Then we went to the newly opened Ellen Degeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. We learned a little more about gorillas and Dian Fossey.
We came back to the hotel for a late lunch and then napped/relaxed/blogged in the afternoon. That evening they made us a special local dinner which was a chicken, potato, plantain, and peaut braised dish. It was delicious. We spent quite a bit of time talking to the hotel manager and chef. We really enjoy making these personal connections.
We were up early. I had had trouble sleeping because I was anticipting seeing the gorillas. I’ve been looking forward to this for close to 4 years. We left the hotel at 6:30 and arrived at Volcano’s National Park at 7. On the way there we saw lots of people out running for exercise, sometimes in big groups. We were commenting that a society has to be quite secure to focus on getting enough exercise. At the park, there were lots of people having coffee and waiting for the trekking to be organized. Hussein went off to get us registered and make sure that we got a nearby family. There are 22 gorilla families in total, 12 get daily visitors and 10 are studied/researched by representatives of the Dian Fosse Foundation. We were organized into 8 person groups, each with two guides, that go to the gorilla families that receive visitors. I believe the permits sell out every day. There were also people going to see the golden moneys there.
10% of the income from the gorilla tours goes back to the local communities, thus incentivizing the locals to protect the gorillas. The worldwide population of mountain gorillas is around 1,000, spread throughout a mountain range that encompasses parts of Rwanda, the Congo, and Uganda. They have been so successful in protecting and growing the population in Rwanda that they are running out of land for the gorillas and have a 5-year plan to buy farmland to expand their territory. A handful of gorillas have died because they fight each other for the limited space.
Here are some pictures of the gathering area.
Our gorilla guide, Emmanuel
We had two guides Emmanuel and Francis. Emmanuel has been working with the gorilla for 12 years. He told us a little about the family we were going to see. It has two silverbacks. The back of a male gorilla turns grey when he is about 12 years old (male gorillas live for 35 to 45 years old). The two silverbacks in this family are brothers, Guhonda, the alpha and Big Ben, his brother. Big Ben is bald. This is unheard of and they aren’t sure why he is bald. He can’t attract any females because they don’t like his baldness, so he can’t start his own family. The family had several babies.
We got back in the car and travelled to the trailhead. There we were met by a number of porters. We were encouraged to hire a porter by Burt, who had arranged our travel plans. The porters are former poachers, so finding alternative income is important. We each hired a porter. My porter’s name was Innocent. I would say he was helpful at times and unhelpful at other times. The path was very narrow and he wanted to hold my hand. I couldn’t walk squarely. Also, when the going got tough, he held my hand and my armpit which wasn’t the most comfortable. But he was trying to help and he didn’t speak any English so we managed. We walk up the mountain through farmland for about 30 minutes. The walk was pretty easy and we had no trouble. Then we got to the edge of rainforest which had no path, stinging nettles and very dense vegetation. It was not easy going. We were walking over bushes that had been a slightly trampled.
From our walk to the gorillasFrom our walk to the gorillaFrom our walk to the gorillas Innocent, my porterSome of our group and some of the trackers. The gloves are to protect against the sting nettles.
Once we got close to the gorillas we had to leave our porters behind. There would be too many people if they came too.
Gorillas typically wake up at sunrise and then spend 3 hours grazing around for breakfast. Then they take a nap and repeat the process for lunch and dinner. They go to sleep for the night around sunset. They make a new nest, always in a different location from the prior night, to sleep in. There was a team of 4 trackers who track the gorillas all day so they know roughly where the gorillas decide to sleep. Then the trackers are up early the next morning to find the gorillas. This is how the guides know where to take their groups.
We were walking up a hill, over the bushes and through the stinging nettles and suddenly there was a juvenile male gorilla, just sitting there scratching himself. As we watched him, other gorillas wandered closer to us. Eventually Big Ben came down the hill. He beat his chest and charged us. We had been instructed to crouch down when they do that. Big Ben or one of the other juvenile males did this several more times while we were watching them. A couple of times a young male moved through our group and hip checked someone, knocking them over. No one got hurt. We also saw some young ones playing.
We were only supposed to be with them for one hour but it seemed longer. We were watching them, moving around to see them better and taking pictures. It was hard to get a good picture because they often had their backs to us. During our briefing we were told to say about 20 ft away from them, but our guides let us get as close as 3 ft. It was truly amazing. Here are some pictures.
Big BenSee the baby on the mothers back
We walked back down the hill and our car was waiting for us. Next we went to a cultural village which was very commercialized and, frankly, kind of hokey. We didn’t learn much about the culture or the history because the woman who ushered us around the village was very difficult to hear and her English wasn’t great. She couldn’t fully understand our questions. Here are a couple of pictures of the “welcoming committee.”
We came back to the hotel and had lunch. While we were in the restaurant, top generals from the Rwandan army came in. One of them talked to us and asked if we were nervous to have so many military men there. We said no, that is made us feel safe. Several people have talked to us about the importance of the military in terms of keeping Rwanda safe. Of course they have the warring DRC to their north, but it also seems to partially be the aftermath of the genocide. Having such a strong military seems danagerous to me because they could easily support a coup and install a dictator.
That afternoon we both napped, relaxed, and blogged. It poured rain. We didn’t realize it but this is considered low season since it rains on and off a lot. The walk up to see the gorillas will probably be a muddy mess tomorrow.
We had another great dinner at the hotel. We would strongly recommend our hotel, the Bishop’s House. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. At dinner we were talking to our waiter who was 29 years old. His father died a number of years ago and our waiter is supporting several siblings and his mother. So while life is better here in Rwanda than in Madagascar it’s not easy. We asked him if he was a Hutu or a Tutsi and he wouldn’t answer us. I think that is because they don’t want to view themselves as one or the other, rather they view themselves as Rwandan.
We left the hotel at 8AM for the airport terminal, just a 5 minute drive. We got checked in and through customs. We hadn’t had breakfast at the hotel because we were going to have a long wait at the airport for our flight. We planned to go to the airport lounge for breakfast. The lounge was at the very other end of the airport. It seemed like it was about 5 miles away from our gate. It was the worst lounge we have ever been in. A review we found online described the food as salmonella on a plate. Needless to say we didn’t stay long, althought the cappucino was good. We headed to our gate and just waited for the flight. The Air Kenya pilots decided to go on strike that day so our flight on Air Rwanda was full with people being rerouted.
We sat next to a Rwandan gentleman who had been in Kenya studying for a masters in IT. He described a fairly dire educational system in which they were teaching him IT theory but nothing practical. We tried to figure out how to help him, but so far we don’t have any ideas. We also met a swiss woman and her two children. Interestingly she had heard a lot about Rick’s cousin, Bruno Manser. I guess he is quite famous.
We were met at the plane by an agent of our travel company who helped us through immigration and then took us to a lounge where we had a covid PCR test. The covid test was not to enter the country, it was to ensure we weren’t sick so we could see the gorillas. Both our tests were negative.
Outside the airport we met our guide, Hussein. He took us to lunch in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, at a 5 star restaurant in a hotel. Our initial impressions of Rwanda and Kigali are very good. The roads are in great shape. The houses look much better. People are not so skinny. We are told that 90% of the country has electricity. Hussein told us that he really likes the president, who in Hussein’s opinion has done a great job of rebuilding the country after the 1994 genocide. Hussein’s son is going to university and he expects his daughter to go too. It was very different from our impressions after having spoken with the IT student on the plane.
Other interesting facts about Rwanda: Rwanda is called the land of 1000 hills and is home to 13 million people, 1.5 million of whom live in Kagali. 90% of the people are Chrisitans, 50% Catholic, it used to be higher but some Catholic priests and nuns participated in the genocide, so many people left the Catholic church and 5% Muslim. Girls must be over 21 years old to get married. Women represent 64% of parliament and hold 50% of government jobs. They have nationalized healthcare. In Kagali there are lots of mopeds, most of which act as “taxis.” People know they are taxis because the drivers wear red vests.
After lunch we went to the genocide museum. It was overwhelming to learn that one million people were killed in 100 days. We learned that there really wasn’t any difference between the Tutsis and the Hutus. It was a convention created by the Germans and later the Belgium, colonizers of Rwanda. They designated anyone who had more than 10 cows as a Tutsi and everyone else was a Hutu. Then the colonizers created a culture of hatred between the two groups. After Rwanda gained its freedom in 1962 the politicians intensified the culture of hatred and planned the genocide using Nazi techniques. They had youth soldiers in neighboring countries learning how to massacre people. On April 6, 1994 the president’s plane was shot down and the Hutus blamed the Tutsis. They had set up roadblocks by that night to hunt down the Tutsis. No one ever learned who shot the plane down, but it is believed that it was the Hutus because they were able to initiate the roadblocks and the killings so quickly. The world and the UN stood by and did nothing to help the Tutsis. There were neighbors killing neighbors and even family killing family. Even the catholic priests and nuns joined it! After several months Rwandans, Tutsis and moderate Hutus who had fled the country, organized to invade and stop the killing. The stories from survivors were haunting. As a result of the genocide, there were about 400,000 orphans. Many women had been raped by knowingly HIV positive men.
The museum highlighted some other genocides, including the Nazi genocide and the Cambodian genocide instigated by Pol Pot, and is part of a foundation that tries to educate people about the roots of genocide and prevention of future genocides. There was a traditional saying higlighted on one of the walls that I really liked, “A tree can only be straightended when it is young.” So true!
We watched Hotel Rwanda before we left and apparently the movie does not tell the entire story. According to Hussein the hotel manager made people pay to stay at the hotel and if they couldn’t pay he made them leave to be slaughtered. The real manager is in prison today.
The real Hotel Rwanda
After the museum we drove for about 2 ½ hours to Ruhengeri, which is where our hotel is located. We drove through lots of little towns and lots of farm land. Sinilar to our experience in Madagasgar, trucks struggling up the hills really slowed us down.
It rained much of the way and was pouring when we arrived. We got checked in and had a lovely dinner. Here are pictures of our hotel.
Red is the flight from Nairobi to Kigali and the black is the drive from Kigali to Ruhengeri
