Gorilla Trekking in Volcanoes National Park

On monday, 23rd june, all of a sudden, we got the chance to take part in THE activity to do in Rwanda: gorilla trekking! Every year the Rwandan tourist office organises those tours for a limited number of visitors, who actually have to pay about US-$ 500 to see the closest relatives of us human beings. For you to know: there are only around 750 mountain gorillas left in the world, living in the border triangle of Rwanda, Uganda and the DR Congo. As interns of a Rwandan travel agency and with a whole lot of luck we managed to get permits to go on this amazing tour. We started our trekking at around 8 a.m. and it took us around two hours of hiking up the volcano Sabinyo to get to the gorillas. Our group, by the way, consisted of 8 tourists, two trained tour guides and two heavily armed Rwandan soldiers (there are still rebels in the jungle to be found). Our way led us through dense bamboo forest, which is also the gorillas favorit food. To finally reach the gorilla family "Hirwa" was simply amazing. The male leader of the group, the silverback, was maily resting while his wives and kids were playing and sleeping. Stunningly, all of them were so peaceful and calm and our rangers were even communicating with the silverback. Eye contact was allowed and sometimes it even felt as if THEY were watching US and showing off. We were allowed to watch them one full hour, though it seemed as if we were watching them only 15 minutes. When we left, several armed guides stayed with the gorillas. Because of their calm nature and their habituation to human beings, they are easy targets for poachers who want to sell their meat on the black market. Thus, by visiting them, we contributed to the mountain gorillas conservation and protection.