Matthew and Ellen in Rwanda: Habers in the Mist!

It's not often that something truly lives up to and exceeds every expectation I could've had, but today was one of those days. Let's start from the beginning...

We woke up at 5 this morning, which (despite all real world time changes) is WAY earlier in Africa than it is in the US. It hurt. But we dragged ourselves out of bed and got into our hiking gear-- boots, non-cotton clothes, etc., right down to the gardening gloves we brought from home for reasons we still didn't quite understand. We went to breakfast, and again Kamalisa (spelled right this time) was there to greet us. It turns out she is an orphan, and lives at a nearby orphanage when she isn't working at the Home Inn in Musanze. She served us omelettes, toast, coffee, fruit, and hot chocolate. We feel better now.

Eric arrived promptly at 6:30, and we rode off to the Parc office. This, it turns out, is the staging ground, where all gorilla trekking tourists and their guides meet up. The tourists are lured away with free coffee, tea and incredible photo ops of the volcanoes while the guides use some sort of secret bartering process to divvy up their tourists into small groups of no more than eight, which is the maximum number allowed by the park to visit any gorilla group at a time. (There are eight groups of Mountain gorillas that are available to be visited by tourists, and the park trackers keep tabs on them daily.) Our group consisted of 4 couples: ourselves, another American couple about our age from NY named Alene and Jonathan (woot Aileen and John!), a Spanish couple in their 40s, I would guess, and a worrisome Austrian couple that appeared to be in their late 60s or early 70s. Now, I try to avoid ageism, but these people with whom we were literally about to climb a mountain looked well older than our parents, and my mother nearly died on every family vacation we ever took. But Ellen and I tried to remain positive, acknowledging that they were from Austria, where the Hills continue to be Alive, even while the people near their demise.

At this small group pow wow we also met our guide, Francis, a soft-spoken (everyone in Rwanda is soft-spoken, btw) and matter-of-fact man in an all-green uniform who explained the family lineage and organization of the gorilla group we would be visiting (literally). Our group was called Umubano, and it consists of twelve gorillas--one Silverback named Charles (they all have names), several mature females, a few blackbacks (immature males) and two babies. Francis also explained that we were to do our best to maintain a distance of at least 7 meters from the gorillas at all time. This is for our safety.

After the meeting broke, we got back in the car and Eric drove us up the bumpiest road ever constructed to the base of the volcano. It's hard to maintain your Prince William poise while waving to running/screaming children as you simultaneously try to avoid both hitting your head on the ceiling of your Land Cruiser and vomiting. But, like a stoic Royal, I held both my nose up and my breakfast down. Those Brits don't get enough credit.

On the way, Eric explained that there are porters waiting at the bottom of the trail to help us with our packs if we want. I listened skeptically. We had done a good job bringing only the necessities-- thanks to my experience on 5 consecutive USN sophomore retreats, I'm pretty much a hiking expert now-- so my pack was light and I didn't anticipate needing any hired help. Eric explained that many of the porters are actually people who formerly made their living poaching, and so the government encourages tourists to help these men earn an honest day's wage. "Yeah, but I've hiked Cold Mountain like 3 times" I told myself. I was pretty sure I could do this without a porter. "They also help with the hiking," Eric said. Whatever.

When we arrived at the base of the mountain, we got out of the car and Eric asked if we wanted one porter or two. Classic alternate close! Salesmanship at its best. I succumbed, and we hired one porter-- a young, toothy short guy named Bonzo. Seriously. I handed my North Face backpack to Bonzo, and we were off. The trail to the base of the mountain was about half a mile through flat farmland, and Aging Austrian Husband was already panting. Uh oh. Das is no gutt.

We reached the base of the volcano, and Francis introduced some of the other trackers, including a man whom he probably introduced but I couldn't hear because I was staring at the assault rifle he was carrying. The assault rifle, he explained, was to scare away any animals that might want to charge us-- it turns out that there are also mountain elephants and mountain buffalo that are particularly dangerous. Wow. Francis also mentioned that the trail is lined with Stinging Nettles. "You will probably get to experience them," he finished.

And we were off. The hike in was no joke-- essentially straight up the mountain. Almost immediately, Bonzo's true value became apparent. His job was not just to carry my North Face backpack (along with a machete, btw, which provides a simultaneously humorous and haunting visual), but also to literally DRAG my wife up a volcano. WORTH EVERY PENNY of that roughly ten bucks I paid him. In fact, I've hired Bonzo to return to Nashville with us, and will gladly pay him 5000 Rwandan Francs daily to push, pull, and yank Ellen in whatever direction is necessary. We made great time, despite "experiencing" the stinging nettles often.

About an hour into the uphill climb, we ran into other official trackers. This meant that gorillas were nearby! We left our pack with Bonzo and began to walk quietly up the trail. As we turned a corner, I heard some brush rattle and looked up. There, sitting on a ridge about 10 feet away, was the back of a huge gorilla. "Ellen," I whispered. "There's a gorilla right there."

Now Ellen and I are both direction-followers. So we immediately moved away in obedient attempts to maintain the official 7 meters. That's when one of the trackers-- a smiley man named Anton-- basically grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me down the trail. There were two more just in front of us. Just like that, our whole group was essentially surrounded by three gorillas. I heard a terrifying low, rumbly growl. I turned around and realized that it was the trackers, making gorilla-esque noises that supposedly let the real gorillas know that everything was okay.

It's hard to describe the next hour-- we just, sort of, hung out with gorillas. We would move around a few feet here and there, and the gorillas would occasionally get up and move around (or, more often, roll around). Then the trackers would hack their way with machetes to another spot where there were other gorillas, and then we would move over there. We watched them lay around, scratch their stomachs, groom themselves and each other, play with their babies (I'm not prone to hyperbole, but it was the cutest thing ever), eat leaves, and just generally gorilla about. It was magical, and I don't believe there was a single time when I was more than seven meters from a gorilla. Most of the time we were about 8-10 feet away, encouraged by the trackers when it was okay, and pulled aside when it wasn't. It was alternately serene, magical, terrifying, funny, and invigorating. The only noises were the growls of the trackers, the occasional growls and squeals of the gorillas themselves, and the clicks of cameras. Everyone in the group was totally high.

This lasted, as I said, for about an hour, and was amazing. The only small disappointment was that we hadn't yet seen the Silverback, the leader of the group and the largest male. Francis began the process of letting us down gently, saying that the Silverback was nearby under some bushes, and probably wouldn't come out for us to see. We would try to find a way around, he said, but we may have to turn back if we can't get near enough to him. Anton seemed determined, though, and began hacking away at some brush with his machete. Francis was visibly annoyed and nervous, but Anton kept hacking away, and began growling and shaking the bushes. Then the Silverback emerged-- he was astonishingly large, easily twice the size of some of the other gorillas (Francis said that he weighed about 200 kg-- 400+ lbs.). He came out, sat on his haunches about 10 feet away, looked around at us for a minute or so, and then went back to his hangout. It was exhilarating.

At that point we turned back. The descent was significantly easier and faster than the ascent, especially since we basically skied down in the slick soil. I slipped about 8 times. Thanks to Bonzo, I don't think Ellen fell at all, and thanks to their porters, Aging Austrian Couple did just fine. Remarkable.

After we left, we cleaned up at the Home Inn, checked out and made the 2 hour drive back to Kigali. Eric found us a new hotel-- a fabulous, brand new (just opened 2 weeks ago) B&B called the Inside Afrika Boutique Hotel. So, no more Gorillas Hotel for us-- we've moved up in the world.

It was an incredible day. Ellen and I started thinking about the "coolest things we've ever done" list, and this is right at the top. I know you've probably only read this far in the hope of seeing some pictures, so a few are below. Don't worry, we have about 9000 more (it's incredibly hard to stop taking pictures of gorillas-- imagine standing next to the Grand Canyon and then multiply it by the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty) and a few dozen Animal Planet flip videos too. Here are some pictures that will hopefully give you a sense of how close we were.

Tomorrow we begin our genocide tour-- should be a slightly different tone.