Intrepid Travel Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 11

Today we had the luxury of waking up naturally – but, frustratingly, it turns out my brain has now been trained to switch on at 5.30am – since our activities began at a civilised hour. First there was breakfast which today was banana pancakes and millet porridge (which is greyish but surprisingly fruity in taste).

Then Lucky met five of us for a village tour. The first surprise was that we were taken there not in the car we expected, but on motorbike taxis. We strapped on the compulsory helmets (one size, unadjustable strap, visor) – “or you go to prison” said Lucky – and set off along what is still the novelty of well-maintained streets. It was fun to be a proper part of the roadshow instead of insulated from it in our huge truck; and I was really impressed by the petrol stop at a little shop where a woman rushed out with a water bottle full of petrol, which she upended into the tank. Done and paid for in one minute.

We walked up a stony, muddy track towards the village which Lucky is cultivating as a community project. He’s a university student looking for other employment after teaching in a school for a year and not getting paid (a remarkably common experience here). He told us about the pyrethrum daisy crop, for insect repellent, and the Irish potatoes, and maize and eucalyptus, and then we got to the mud hut where a couple demonstrated grinding herbs in a tub and pestle, and weaving a beehive (and we also saw a chameleon in a hedge). We went into their house to sit on a traditional bed, made of split bamboo padded with eucalyptus leaves, just like he grew up with.

They don’t always use the word ‘genocide’ here, but that’s what they mean when they talk about ‘previously’ and ‘now’. The point this time was that guest rooms like this one would have been shelters for people walking through the area, given freely in the expectation of the favour being paid forward – but now it’s all about money.

Then we were treated to a proper concert of energetic singing and dancing to a single drum by residents of the village. Everyone not taking part was gathered to watch, a toddler insisted on joining in, the performers were having a great time, and everyone enjoyed the joke of the two men doing a pretend drunk dance. There was weaving, books were presented, we saw sorghum ground and turned into ‘bread’ (hot paste) and then we departed, happy that 75% of our pretty reasonable fee was being returned to the community (who are currently delighted about getting solar panels for 6 hours of light a night). Lucky’s website is www.rwandatreasuretours.com if you’re interested.

Back at the hotel (by car this time) we rashly ordered lunch at the rooftop bar. Pizzas for the others, a croque monsieur for me. How long do you reckon? Only the hour and a quarter to deliver. TIA.

Not far from the hotel is the Dian Fossey Museum, which explains everything you could want to know about gorillas as well as telling the story of her work with them, and its encouraging results. Her desk is on display, as well as a resin gorilla skeleton next to a human one, which was interesting. For once the story of mountain gorillas is encouraging, their numbers increasing steadily – but there are still only 400 or so, and they’re vulnerable to human disease. So don’t go to see them if you’re sick.

We wandered back to the hotel by the route touristique, through the town, past the shops, through the market, and into a ‘modern’ mall with gorillas outside, where the top floors were occupied by men and women crouched over treadle Singer sewing machines, all crowded together in dim light, buzzing away making a variety of garments.

With a degree of triumph, we found our way back to the hotel, satisfied with our little adventure – and also with the exercise (although for many of us not really with tonight's dinner, which was African-style, spinach and beans, eaten along the veranda with the rain coming down). Tomorrow, we’re up before dawn for another day back on the truck.

Intrepid Travel Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 10

Today was the day we were all waiting for – the main reason for our all choosing this particular Intrepid tour, and what’s kept us going through some frustrations and discomfort along the way. We headed off at 6.20am after a particularly sustaining breakfast, driving to the gorilla trekking centre outside the town. There we said which tour we wanted – easy, medium, hard – and there was a bit of number juggling. Then we all waited, fizzing with impatience, and also adjusting our gear.

We’ve had a lot of rain lately – it is the rainy season – some of it very heavy, and we were apprehensive about the muddy climb up through the jungle to where each groups’ assigned gorilla family was expected to be (trackers, er, keep track of them). I strapped on gaiters for the first time in my life.

Our assigned guides took each group away for a briefing in the garden. Most of our tour had elected for a medium trek, and our guide was Francis, with 20 years’ experience. He described our gorilla family, called Amahoro, its 15 year-old silverback, Gahinga, the dominant male. We could hope to see 19 gorillas.

And then we set off, up into the hills deep into farming country – the volcanic soil here is dark and clearly enviably fertile, the crops of potatoes, beans, maize and pyrethrum looking lush and healthy. We passed kids going off to school and younger ones waving energetically and shouting ‘Hello!’ as we passed. Guys on bikes hung with yellow plastic containers toiled along: the banana beer delivery service. The road got really bumpy and then finally we were at the end, and piled out, keen to get hiking.

Following huge furrows past tethered sheep and cows, we came to the wall of the Ruhengeri National Park, and climbed over it to start the trek proper. The jungle was surprisingly quiet and bird-free (compared with the Amazon) but we were busy anyway watching our footing on the slithery bits, glad to have been given carved poles to use, and taking care not to brush up against the fiercely vicious stinging nettles they have here. The gaiters were good protection, from them and also the mud, by the way.

We wound up for about 90 minutes, the guides getting updates by radio from the trackers – and then, quite suddenly, it was time. We took off our packs with our lunches in, left our sticks behind, and took just our cameras deeper into the bush, pushing and scrambling through bamboo and bushes, someone cutting a way for us with a machete.

And there they were: eight gorillas, right there, much closer to us than the official 7 metres. Like, just two metres. The silverback was sprawled out on his back, snoozing, the younger blackbacks and females lay in a heap together with younger ones, resting and grooming each other, while a mischievous baby explored around the edges. None of them took any notice of or interest in us, although they were of course aware of us. This is one of the park’s habituated families, who are used to seeing humans appear for an hour almost every day. They probably think we’re just a weird oddly varied kind of species who talk in whispers and make constant clicking sounds.

The silverback woke up, looked at us unimpressed, appeared to give us the finger, and slowly moved away to feed. The baby did forward and backward rolls, explored things to eat, copied an older gorilla who climbed up some bamboo, swinging till it crashed down, and generally behaved like any curious kid. One bigger gorilla way up in a tree had an elevated poop. After a bit, they all went deeper into the bush to feed, and eventually we lost sight of them, not quite having had our full hour. We didn’t mind, though – everyone was thrilled to have got so close to them and to have seen, in the end, about a dozen gorillas of all ages. Besides, we could hear thunder rumbling around the edges of the valley and it felt like time to go.

So we headed off back down and out of the jungle into the farmland again, to be taken to a souvenir shop for our official certificates; and then back to the hotel. Where, of course, we found the others, who had elected for the tough hike, had found their gorillas within 20 minutes, all 21 of them including two silverbacks and twin babies. One girl even had a young gorilla grab her leg. And then they got back before us, and scored all the bragging rights.

Never mind. We had a perfectly satisfying gorilla encounter, which was wonderfully special and up close, and we feel lucky to have had an experience that most people can only imagine. Apart from David Attenborough, of course.

Intrepid Travel Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 9

Perversely, for the first time in a week I had an ensuite and I didn’t use it in the night. What a wasted opportunity. But it was so nice to be in a proper bed, that I slept right through (apart from a brief interlude when it sounded as though a duck was being strangled right outside my window).

We made packed lunches today, using stale white bread that no-one was impressed with; but at least had breakfast in the hotel – where the juice on the buffet was labelled ‘Fresh Passion’. Always a good way to start the day. There was a TV on the wall showing a lecture by an economist, who was writing notes on a blackboard using chalk, which seemed a nice little contrast of media.

Not far from the hotel was the border crossing to Rwanda, which was a straightforward matter of queuing and passport stamping – except with the extra requirement on the Rwanda side that we had to present our bags for inspection, to make sure we weren’t carrying any plastic bags. They banned plastic carriers 30 years ago – a stunningly forward-thinking move that puts the rest of the world to shame – and some were indeed found amongst our group, despite earlier warnings (not me, natch).

Then we set off for Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. En route there were green terraced hills – Rwanda is ‘The country of 1000 hills’ – and miles of tea plantations dotted with villages where children waved enthusiastically at the truck and their parents were in neat Sunday best: especially tall elegant women in colourful gowns and matching headscarfs. So far Rwanda seems more orderly than Uganda: motorbike helmets compulsory, the road better made and edged, proper pavements. The bicycle seems the preferred (possibly only affordable) mode of transport, for carrying people, milk, firewood, all sorts – so fast down the hills that the truck was sometimes unable to overtake.

Then we got to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which was a professionally-presented record of the before, during and after of the 1994 genocide that for so long was just a brief item in the international news. Up close and personal, it was stunningly horrific, and the exhibition pulls no punches. It’s controlled, but passionate, and the many personal testimonies, in writing and on video, are confronting and desperately sad. There was a separate room for an overview of some other genocides (“not enough room for them all”) including Armenia, Serbia, Cambodia and of course the Holocaust – to the presumed resignation of the German tourists going through with us.

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And then we were on the road again, fortunately only briefly halted by a beer truck in the gutter, heading to our accommodation for the next three nights while we concentrate on why everybody chose to come on this tour: the mountain gorillas. How that's going to work we have as yet no idea: all I know is that it's an efficient business. Time will tell.

We arrived at our neat hotel/hostel/campsite where we will be in dormitories for a change. There was a walk around the town visiting a variety of ATMs, with a variety of success, and a quick look at the market which seems worth another visit. The pavements were busy with, amongst others, beautifully dressed guests on their way to a reception, curious kids, and chatty young men keen to extract our email addresses. The younger generations speak English: it's been the language of instruction since 2007 when it was changed from French to fit in with the other East African countries. The older folk do still speak French, though, which is fun to hear.

Then it rained, hard, and we ended the day as usual, with beer, a briefing and dinner (meatballs tonight) - and all fingers crossed for fine weather and a gorilla trek tomorrow.

Intrepid Travel Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 8

There was a hyena howling in the night, and early this morning hippos chortling nearby in the dark, but the main nocturnal soundtrack was music from a party in perhaps the school hall along the road, which went on until 3am. Friday night is clearly a big event (also, by the way, they specialise in marathon music mixes here: they go on forever). But I’m into the camping groove now, and none of it mattered.

We left at 7am for the long drive to Lake Bunyoni, along roads less interesting today because it was raining and people were naturally mostly indoors – though there was a big bull elephant right on the verge, which was lovely to see. Can you ever get blasé about seeing an elephant? Hard to imagine.

On the bus there was card-playing, patch-working, and device-based entertainment, punctuated by occasional bush toilet stops. We also stopped to buy bananas and avocados from street sellers, who ran up to the window, baskets on heads, clamouring to be the one whose goods were chosen. Bare-footed small children stood in the mud, smiling at us, bicycle repairmen did their work under thatched shelters, new wooden bed frames, displayed out on the verge, got wet.

There was a snack/money stop in the ramshackle town of Kabale, where men with Singer sewing machines did repairs under the eaves of buildings, and motorbike taxis with umbrella roofs buzzed along the main street and the local rag had such intriguing headlines I was especially frustrated that all copies on the stand were stapled shut. Because the rain was so heavy, lots of things got cancelled. Ben our driver wouldn’t risk our big bus up the presumably dirt - rather, mud - road to the scheduled camp on the hill by Lake Bunyoni, where this afternoon we could have rowed canoes or gone bird-watching. Instead, we descended on a by-Intrepid-standards fancy hotel where everybody, in the face of steady, drenching rain, opted for the USD30 upgrade to a room with ensuite (hot water! A proper loo!). Reader, I was one of them. And then, of course, after our very late lunch, the rain cleared and the afternoon brightened.

But it was nevertheless, after a week of deprivation, a huge treat to have privacy, comfort, hot water (did I mention that already?) and a proper bed to starfish in instead of a mummy-shaped sleeping bag. And also wifi – though naturally we were instantly dissatisfied with the speed.

Gorilla fever is steadily building, with note-swapping of Google research, curiosity, excitement and an undercurrent of anxiety that there won't be proper sighting. Most are agreed that that would cause tears. But tomorrow is more about crossing the border to Rwanda and being sure that we aren't carrying any inadvertent plastic bags, since they have, most admirably, been banned there for the last 30 years. I'm keen to see that: Africa without plastic. Now that will be something special.

Intrepid Travel Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 7

And indeed there were hippos in the night through the camp, with evidence left behind. Just as well it had been mind over bladder in the stilly watches.

We set off early again for another game drive through the park but though we saw some wildlife, we spent much more time gazing at lush green vegetation while bumping and lurching along the side roads. Rainy season is the wrong time of year for good game viewing, that’s just the way it is, but it’s still hard not to feel some disappointment.

We did though get close up to a solitary bull elephant, who was feeding right beside the road and then crossed behind us. Elephants here look much darker than I’ve seen elsewhere, but that’s probably because of the deep red soil here that they happily cake themselves with as sunblock and tick eradicator. It’s always splendid to get up close to such a magnificent animal.

There was waiting while administration was done, or at least attempted in the absence of a working generator; and shopping. The group Shopper has identified herself and is happily accumulating a mass of souvenirs, many of which are tempting even to a shopaphobe like me. I’m holding out for a carved gorilla in Rwanda.

In the interests of full disclosure, it has to be said that there is growing dissatisfaction with our guide Edwin, who began very serviceably but has become oddly sullen and silent over the last couple of days, leaving us wondering if we have somehow offended him. He’s answering questions, but not talking to us at all, and there is already dark muttering about his not getting a tip. Ben the driver and OT the cook, all agree, are doing their jobs splendidly.

After a highly starchy lunch – chips, plantain bananas and beans (we’re doing it African today) – we headed out again to take a cruise along the canal that joins Lakes Edward and George. It was a birder’s delight – from pelicans to pied kingfishers and heaps in between; and also well supplied with wallowing buffalo, sunbathing crocodiles and mostly submerged hippos. 

The challenge here for me was to get the cliché shot of the yawn, and I missed it again and again; but finally, you’ll be relieved to hear, cracked it. And just in time: then the rain came, and wind, and the windows were rolled down so that all we could see were the terns and kingfishers following the boat, hovering and diving on the fish our propellor was stirring up in the shallow water.

On the way back to camp, we encountered a solitary bull in the road – a one-elephant jam – and politely watched while he drank from the puddles on the road and eventually moved out of the way. So after a fairly blank morning, we ended the day feeling pretty well served with wildlife.

Dinner was more African fare – maize meal, chapatti, lentils and lamb – and then everyone repaired to the open-sided bar to talk about Tasmanian devils, kangaroos and koalas, amongst other things, in light so dim that faces were invisible. Tomorrow we have – surprise! – an early start before a 250km drive to our destination, Lake Bunyoni.

Intrepid Gorillas & Game Parks - Day 6

It was a lively sort of night. Apart from the usual snoring and bladder-driven tent zip action, there was a prolonged session of sleep-shouting from a member of a different tour group, who swore and argued and thrashed about inside his tent for ages probably under the influence of his malaria drug. Plus there was the wildlife randomly howling, screeching and croaking all night. Oh yes, and those occasional large round avocados crashing down from a tree onto the tents below. As I say, lively.

Nevertheless, we were up early again to start our chimpanzee walk at 6.30am, heading straight off into the jungly forest with Debra as our guide, hoping to see some of the population of chimps who live here in Kalinzu Forest. We walked for a couple of hours, nothing too strenuous, and did eventually find some chimps, thanks to a network of trackers phoning in information. The chimpanzees were very high in a tree though, about 50m up (we tried to work out the height from the time it took a fig to fall to the ground but it was complicated. There were parsecs involved. I fell back on my standard technique of picturing the finish line of a 100m race). Anyway, they were beyond the range of my lens.

There were parents with a young chimp and we could see them moving and eating figs, but really they were just distant silhouettes against the sky, that we had to tip our heads right back to see, which soon got really uncomfortable and was also a bit disappointing, especially considering the USD70 fee. But of course they are wild animals, a law unto themselves, and were high in the trees because it was a cool morning. Naturally, by the time we’d got back to camp, the sun was out and it was hot and they would have been retreating down to ground level. The most exciting encounter of the morning, it turned out, was a pretty furry orange caterpillar I discovered busily crawling up my shirt. Apparently, if you touch its fur you get a day of burning pain. Close call.

Then we headed off towards Queen Elizabeth National Park – a huge flat expanse edged by big hills and surrounding Lake Edward. It’s known for its elephants, and we saw plenty as we arrived, feeding on the luxuriant vegetation. That turned out to be our downfall, as it concealed most of the wildlife we might otherwise have seen. But there were hippos in the lake.

We settled in for the night at a lodge/campsite where most of the tour group opted for upgrades from our tents to rooms – thatched wooden huts with mosquito net-draped beds and ensuites. They looked really nice but it turned out they, like us using the communal toilet block, had no hot water, muddy cold water, no wifi, and we all lost mains power about an hour after sunset. Africa! (But at least all the staff wear bow ties.)

I also discovered that even with two mattresses, you can tell the difference in the relative hardness of the ground. Yesterday’s grass was much softer. But never mind, these early starts ensure that it’s easy to fall asleep – and even when you wake in the night, there are grunting hippos to listen to. Hopefully down in the lake, and not wandering through the grounds, which they are known to do…