Rwanda, Uganda, Monkeys and Gorillas

Our flight to Rwanda was fairly inauspicious as Air Rwanda is definitely not one of the better airlines we have flown. A sharp contrast to Malawi Air which was really good. The worst aspect of the flight was that they didn’t turn the air conditioning on for large portions of it and the temperature in the cabin was boiling.

We arrived at Kigali airport, at around 8pm, and easily got sim cards at the desk straight outside arrivals and some money at an ATM nearby. All of the cabs seem to be controlled by a single desk so there was no ability to negotiate on price and we got in a relatively expensive cab to our hotel in Kigali.

By the time we arrived it was pretty late but we were starving so we had a quick meal at the hotel restaurant before collapsing into bed. J had a very early start the next morning.

At 4.30am the next morning I met my Farouk , my guide for my trip to Uganda to see Gorillas and discovered that I was the only person on the trip. It started with a drive out of Kigali into the hills to the North and the Volcanos National Park.

We arrived at the meeting point at Volcanos National Park at 8am which is the same time for all briefings for the various treks that they offer. I wasn’t here to see Gorillas but to see Golden Monkeys. The permit in Rwanda to see gorillas is US$1,500 per person and over the border in Uganda it is only US$800, so I was heading across into Uganda to see them.

However the permit for Golden Monkey treks is only US$100 and the treks are generally much easier than the Gorilla treks as the monkeys are usually found on the edges of the farmland.

Golden Monkeys are a small monkey that is a sub-species of the Sykes or Blue Monkey. They are critically endangered and there are thought to be only around 5,000 remaining, all confined to this range of mountains in Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC.

After the briefing and a free (well we had paid for the permit) coffee (made by a barista) we all jumped into our respective cars and headed about 10 minutes down the road to the start of the hike to see the monkeys. We had started off as a group of about 20 but as half the group were French they were split off and taken to another group of monkeys so there were only 10 of us to see this group.

We hiked uphill through farmland for about 30 minutes until we reached the edge of the forest and there we met some rangers who reported that the family of monkeys that we were going to view was only around 20m away. This family was around 100 strong and the biggest of the habituated groups of golden monkeys in Rwanda.

We were led into the forest and into a small clearing and we started to see the monkeys perched in the trees around us. We were free to move around to get the best spots to see the monkeys.

As the hour of viewing time passed the monkeys seemed to get more and more used to us as a group and the came closer and closer. By the end of the hour they were all around us, on the floor and in the trees and seemingly very unbothered.

The hour flew past and we were soon hiking back through the fields to meet our guides in the car park.

For me the next part of the trip was to head towards the Uganda border and cross over into Uganda. This is where my pre-bought Ugandan visa came into play. With all the paperwork in order the border only took about 20 minutes to navigate and was very easy.

There is a visa for Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda that you can buy for $100 but for British passport holders the entry into Rwanda and Kenya are both visa free (although you need an ETA for Kenya). This means that all three countries cost $80 in total (Uganda visa $50, Rwanda Free, Kenya ETA $30) which is actually cheaper than the combined visa of $100.

After stopping for a quick lunch in a town just past the border we soon turned off the paved road onto fairly rough mountain tracks. This is when the thinking behind the  choice of a Toyota Landcruiser as the tour vehicle became clear.

The last 30km of the journey took about an hour and a half as we drove through stunning mountain scenery. It really reminded me of Northern Vietnam, which was a real surprise to me.

We arrived at a hill top lodge just 30 minutes drive from where I would be trekking the gorillas the next day. This was the “budget” tour option but the hotel was better than expected and there were some great views of the forest from the veranda of my chalet. It did start pouring with rain soon after we arrived so I did take the option of a quick nap – I mean after all I had been up since 4.

Rain stopped for just before dinner which was a three course meal and quite tasty and I headed to bed straight after.

The next morning we were up before sunrise to have breakfast and get going. The gorilla trek was going to start at sunrise so we headed off in the dark to the sector of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest that my permit was allocated to.

I was expecting to go to a ranger station or visitor centre but we actually just pulled up in the middle of a track where there was a moped parked. This was to be the start of the trek and 2 rangers stepped out of the forest – my guides.

3 trackers had gone on ahead to find where the gorilla family that I had been assigned had moved to. They stay with them all day and then have to track them again in the morning which can be difficult as they can move quite a long way.

As I was here in the wetter season and it is low season I was the only person assigned to this group today and therefore had a private trip.

We set off through the forest towards the last known position of the gorillas. The hiking was very tough as the trails were muddy (low down but fortunately we were heading up, very steep and narrow with lots of trip hazards.

They say that the hike to find the gorillas can take half an hour or several hours well I was “treated” to a three hour hike to get to the gorillas. The trackers were having some problems finding them so it took a while and the last half hour of the hiking was completely off trail through some really difficult terrain.

However eventually we descended into a boggy valley and suddenly I saw my first gorilla and the timer on my 1 hour with them started. Manoeuvring around the valley was pretty difficult as it was very rough terrain and I was very glad that I wasn’t part of a bigger group because the vantage points for watching the gorillas were fairly limited.

First off we made our way over to the primary silverback of the group and we found a great place around 2 metres away from where the silverback was resting with a baby playing on top of him and one of his females as well. At one stage he sat up straight and looked right at me.  They seemed completely unbothered by us. He suddenly jumped up and leapt into the bushes and ran off after a female who we had seen in that direction. The speed of his movement was amazing, if he wanted to hurt you it would all be over in a flash !

We then moved position to near the second junior silverback of the group. While watching him and a couple of females around him we were lucky enough to see him sneakily copulate with one of the females. If the primary silverback had seen him there would have been trouble but he got away with it. The guides were very excited to see this and told me that this is very rare !

While in this position one of the younger females walked right by me, within touching distance which was very cool.

The hour seemed to pass in a flash and it wasn’t long until the guides were telling me it was time to leave. The hike out of the valley was hard work as there was no path and a lot of very spiky foliage but we got out on the path and it was then only an hour’s hike back to the pick up point at the edge of the farmland.

I waved goodbye to the rangers and met back up with Farouk for the drive back to Kigali. The drive back was very straightforward and despite stopping for lunch we arrived back at around 4pm. Lunch was in a local Ugandan restaurant just before the border. It was definitely an adventure because it was a served buffet and it was difficult to tell what any of the food actually was. I had some fish and goat and the goat was lovely.

The main impediment to our journey was the huge number of speed cameras in Rwanda ! Farouk told me that not many of the Uganda guides like coming into Rwanda because there are so many cameras and the fines are so big, if they get caught it wipes out their fees for the trip they are doing.

We had a couple of days in Rwanda after the end of the trip. We discovered that although Kigali is a clean and fairly modern capital that there isn’t much to do there.

We did head into the centre of town to explore a bit – and discover that there isn’t much to see. We did see the “Kigali” sign – sited in a pedestrian only strip but not really in an inspiring location.

The one place that all visitors to Rwanda must go though is the Genocide Memorial. We hopped on a pair of motorbike taxis (of which there are thousands in Kigali) and took the 15 minute journey to the memorial.

This is a very sombre place as you learn about the horrendous events of 100 days in 1994 when the Hutu militia had planned and carried out a extermination of members of the Tusti ethnic group. Estimates are that up to 800,000 people were killed in that short period.

The memorial is a good museum that tells the story of the genocide through many personnel stories and really exposes the shameful roles of the many parties. The UN actually had peacekeeping troops on the country who could have stopped the genocide but they withdrew instead allowing the massacres to continue unchecked.

The next destination for us after Rwanda was Kenya and this was to be our last destination in Africa but it was a good one