The hotel was delightful, see www.HotelMuhabura.com. The reception was manned by a really helpful man who was keen to ensure everything was how we wanted it. Knowing we had to leave early we asked what time breakfast was served. He told us that it was from 5 a.m. but that 5.45 would be easily early enough. He later agreed to organise packed lunches for our trek.
I telephoned the 4x4 company to ensure that all was still OK and they confirmed is was and that they would collect us at 6.15 next morning.
We each had an apartment in the grounds that overlooked the volcanoes. We unpacked and then made our way to the patio in front of the hotel for a drink. After we had chatted we decided to go and make use of the HOT showers and then have dinner. I decided to have steak in a mushroom sauce as a real treat. I was not asked how I’d like it cooking so feared the worse. It was fine if not quite as succulent as I’d like.
As we were leaving for dinner, in the fading light, something moving caught my eye and there were three large birds walking along the margin of the hotel gardens.
The hotel gardens looked very pleasant in the early morning light and I decided to go around the back of my apartment block to see the volcanoes. They looked very impressive in the gloom.
We all made breakfast for 5.45 and it was really delightful. It consisted of coffee or tea, omelette, toast, Blue Band margarine, jam and a plate of fruit each. The fruit consisted of two passion fruit, a tree tomato, banana and ¼ of a fresh pineapple. They delivered our packed lunches and we paid for them as we had paid for the rooms on arrival.
Our driver collected us on time and we set of for the meeting point at Kinigi. The roads were lined with hundreds of people walking to church, whilst we ploughed a rapid route down the middle of the road. Drivers here rarely keep to one side of the road unless there is another vehicle in sight!
At Kinigi our driver asked what we wanted to see and how far we were prepared to walk. He would do the negotiation on our behalf, whilst we had a mug of tea or coffee. We said we would like to see a family with recent young gorillas and that were happy to walk a reasonable distance – not the 6 hours that it takes to the Sousa family group!He came back saying we were to go to see the Amahoro family group. (Amahoro = Peace).
Only 8 can visit a group, so we were joined by five others, a Rwandan couple, a Ugandan man his Tanzanian girlfriend and her mother. Everyone piled into our 4x4 as it was the largest and the Rwandans did not want to take their car. We soon realised why. The road to the starting point of the trek was more like a dried up rocky river bed than a road.
It took almost an hour to get to our starting point. We were all offered a carved walking staff, I had my poles so declined, and then we set off across the fields. These were mainly growing Irish potatoes (as they call them) but on the top of the rows of earthed up potatoes a small daisy like flower was growing. Our guide asked is anyone knew what they were. No one did. He then told us they were pyrethrum and was used to produce the chemical permethrin to use as an insect killer on mosquito nets, etc.
Eventually we reach the boundary of the National Park with a wall outside a deep ditch, to keep the wild buffaloes in!We were given our instructions by the guide and set off through the undergrowth, bamboo forest and across fern covered slopes. At time we were walking on plants like matting suspended well above the slope. Several feet of poles often disappeared as we tried to keep our balance on the green stems.
Our trek took about 2 hours and we climbed steadily up to about 2700m where we came across a lake in a valley close to where the trackers had located the family. En route the views back across the park made you feel you were in a very special place, the views looked almost primeval. They used a walkie-talkie to communicate with the guide. We had to leave our poles and bags with a tracker and the two porters that had been employed by Lynne & Darryl and made our way towards the family.
Just as we set off a dark mass rolled past the three of us just inches on the other side of some saplings. It was a black-back male who really set our hearts racing.
The family were in amongst a lot of ferns and at first whilst we could just see the silver-back lazing with a female it was not too inspiring. That soon changed. We saw many of the 18 gorillas in the group. Young chasing each other and play-fighting, mothers with their young, the black-back males mainly by themselves, they get punished by the silver-back if they misbehave. The silver-back was enormous about 210 kg and a very impressive presence. At times you did feel that they were thinking that the guides had brought some more humans for them to watch! What an honour to be able to see these majestic great apes from so close.
I mainly took video, but some pictures are shown below. A female watching the humans, young gorillas playing chase, a black-back male resting and a family get together.
On our way back the cloud finally cleared from the top of the volcano and we could see the crater.
We got back to Ruhengeri at about 3.30 and managed to book a place on the 4.30 bus for Kigali. We spend the time in a bar where we each had two fantas. Cannot believe how many sugary drinks I am having here. The only ones available are fantas and cokes.
On our way back we had a text saying that it was Bert's birthday ans that he would be at the Tangren Chinese restaurant with some friends. I decided so I could go too, and to stay and catch an early bus on Monday morning. I did the 5.25 to Kabarore and beyond!
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