Gorillas in the Midst of Christmas

Thunder cracked over the rainforest, and white welts rose from the irritated skin on my left wrist. “Stinging nettles,” my guide said as he rubbed the sap from a large leaf over my skin. It immediately cooled off. We were climbing Bisoke volcano, an 11,000 ft straight-up-the-mountain kind of climb with a stunning crater lake at the summit and views over the Congo. As we hiked through an incredibly dense patch of overgrowth, Lisa suddenly stopped in front of me. A hush fell over the group.

Sitting to our right, hunched and looking rather bored, was a family of mountain gorillas. They stared quietly in our direction, one of them munched on a stalk of wild celery. Our guide silently rushed us past. We were not supposed to have seen them and photos weren’t allowed, as gorilla tracking is the main source of tourist income in Rwanda and it is in their best interest to avoid seeing gorillas when the tourists have only paid for a hike.

Fortunately, I was going gorilla tracking the next day.

The morning of Christmas Eve I left my things with the girls and shared a lift up to registration with a couple from South Africa, Chris and Victoria. We sipped strong black coffee at the entrance to the Parc National Des Volcans and met the rest of our group. In addition to the three of us there were three American teachers from the International School in Nairobi and a Dutch couple that was on their honeymoon and extremely insecure about it.

We were to be climbing around the steep forested slopes of Karisimbi Volcano, the highest in the region (over 13,000 ft) to search for a family of endangered eastern mountain gorillas. We hiked through dense bamboo groves, forests of stinging nettles that slapped the side of your face when you passed, and mazes of brambles. Our guide, Francis, led the way – slowly hacking a trail through the undergrowth as we slinked behind him searching for signs of gorilla life, which wasn’t always that hard to spot. In several patches of bamboo the stalks were so mangled it looked as if an elephant had plowed through.

The Dutch couple, hiking in front of me, would stop every three or four minutes to take a short video of themselves. He wore a classic tan safari vest and khaki pants, sported the obligatory black fanny pack and had patches of white sunscreen on his nose. She was heavyset, wore bright pink and carried a video camera mounted on a tripod that constantly knocked into things and caused a ruckus.

More than once we came across fresh dung, shaped into a sort of long chain. The Dutch couple roved the video camera over the mass of wet feces. “Does anyone ever take this home?” I asked. I imagined the hysterical look of pure joy on my father’s face if I were to pull out a plastic bag of endangered gorilla dung upon my return home, and I laughed out loud. Francis just glared at me with a look of utter disdain for the bizarre eccentricities of westerners.

Suddenly he stiffened, and began grunting in short heavy bursts, a lilting sort of grunt that sounded remarkably inviting. He told us to drop our bags and take only our cameras out – we were close. I could hear other grunts in the forest, deeper throatier grunts issued from a chest much bigger than our own. Branches of the forest canopy started rustling and shaking. Then I saw him.

Strutting out from under the foliage emerged the leader: the silverback. He made his presence known by knocking over surrounding trees with his hands, though he didn’t need to – everyone knew who was in charge. I was in awe. The feeling of coming face to face with the world’s largest primate is at first shock and then a sense of familiarity; their presence feels undeniably human. Sharing 97% of our biological makeup, they basically are human. But the feeling of awe reaches its height when it comes to their size. Francis said that the silverback standing in front of us, who nearly matched my height while on all fours, weighed around 200 kg (over 400 lbs.).

Mr. Big grunted a few times, almost a bit lazily and stalked off up the side of the mountain. We followed him. Francis pointed out three babies playing to our right – they wrestled together, one beat his chest importantly and then finally collapsed on top of the others in an exhausted heap, only to be picked up by a female and slung upon her back as she climbed a tree. There were younger males, nearly as big but without the saddle of silver on their backs, who would eventually be cast out to live on their own. They tended to sit in one place and chew on bark, hardly giving us a second glance. The smaller adult females were the most curious about us; one meandered up to our group and sat about six feet from me gazing around until she got bored and sauntered off into the undergrowth.

We were allowed one hour with the gorillas. Not nearly enough time to develop an accurate sense of their behavior, but it proved to be a fascinating look into their lives and a rare and humbling glimpse into our own past.

When I got back to town I caught a bus to Gisenyi to meet up with Megan, Lisa and Marloes. Gisenyi is on the shores of Lake Kivu, which also borders the Congo, and was extremely dismal and uninviting. The rain poured all night, and we spent Christmas Eve drinking enormous beers and playing cards in our room.

Since Christmas day ended up being one of those days where everything goes wrong, I have officially decided that my time at Lake Bunyonyi counts as my Christmas. Lake Bunyonyi (“Lake of Little Birds”) is a flooded river valley in southern Uganda, a serpentine water channel dotted with over twenty islands and more dugout canoes than one can count. It is a place where you can hear drumming and singing from nearly every direction no matter where you are.

I spent most of my time with Leonie and Doug, an English couple I met in Kenya and have run into many times since. We paddled around the lake drinking gin and tonics and listening to music, spotting otters and taking swigs of cheap banana liquor I had bought in Rwanda. More than once we got caught in the middle of the lake during a lightning storm, climbing back up to our hostel drenched and bursting with adrenaline.

We partied with the locals on New Years Eve. It was a night of drumming and dancing and singing, then 2010 began by setting off Chinese lanterns over the water and taking a pleasant midnight swim under bright moonlight.

Bunyonyi is popular because of its lack of crocodiles, hippos, and bilharzia, a parasite that lives in nearly all freshwater lakes in East Africa. But mostly is it because it has an incredible atmosphere – it gives you a sense of being in a fantastical land, like hobbits and gnomes will pop out of the perfect green hillsides and invisible festivals of spirits are taking place all around. It appears dreamy and often looks unreal, like a backdrop painted onto the air. It is pure magic.

In the week I’ve spent at this enchanting lake, I have had a chance to edit a few of my gorilla photos. Here are some of my favorites:

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~ by Jeni Stembridge on January 8, 2010.