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Visiting Rwanda's Silverbacks by Robert Bukar

Edited by James Morrissey

Guhonda

In mid 2008, my wife and I decided we wanted to travel to Rwanda to visit the mountain gorillas. I had visited Tanzania a few years earlier and really enjoyed the safari. The one regret I had after leaving Tanzania was not being able to see any gorillas. Gorillas seem so human like, and just thinking about observing them in the wild really fascinated me. Unfortunately, there are only about 700 mountain gorillas left in the world. About half of the mountain gorillas left on the planet live in the mountains of Rwanda, the rest live in Uganda, and The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The mountain gorillas are larger and hairier then their cousins, the western lowland gorilla. Most gorillas found in zoos around the world are the smaller western lowland gorillas. It is thought that there are a few hundred thousand lowland gorillas left in the wild. When most people think of gorillas they think of the mountain “Silverback” made famous by the research of Dian Fossey in Rwanda.

Planning a trip to see the mountain gorillas can be somewhat difficult. There are seven groups of gorillas that can be visited in Rwanda. Only 8 people can visit each group of gorillas each day for one hour. This means that only 56 people on the planet can visit the mountain gorillas in Rwanda each day. Rwanda has two rainy seasons that last 3 months each, so that cuts down the acceptable times to visit to about 6 months. There are about 10,000 slots for people to visit the gorillas in Rwanda each year. It does not amount to a whole lot of slots for the billions of people on the earth. With the limited number of slots available, preparing 6 – 12 months in advance becomes important. Also, high demand and limited supply leads to higher cost.

Due to the current problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we only had the choice of visiting gorillas in Rwanda or Uganda. After some research, I decided to visit Rwanda over Uganda. I was given the impression from people that visited gorillas in both countries that the trek in Uganda was steeper and the forest was thicker, making photography more difficult. It was also mentioned that the views in the volcanoes area of Rwanda, where the gorillas are located, is absolutely stunning.

We utilized Volcanoes Safaris to arrange everything for us. We decided on a four-day and three-night stay in Rwanda. Most things are included in the Volcanoes Safari package, except the Gorilla Park fee and plane tickets. The package comes with airport pickup and drop off, lodging, food, drinks, day trips with car and driver, etc. Volcanoes Safari is high end and quite expensive at about $600/day/person. We stayed at the Volcanoes Virungus Lodge, owned by Volcanoes Safaris, for our entire stay. It consists of a dozen small lodges with king sized beds, attached bathrooms, and a front porch with views of the lakes and/or volcanoes. We had a lovely room with views of both the lake and volcanoes. It was extremely peaceful and relaxing.

Dawn Over Lake Burera

I highly highly recommend this place, even if you don’t make full arrangements through Volcanoes Safaris. Everything is included including alcohol and laundry service. They even clean your shoes when the safari is done! They brought our shoes back better then they looked in years, no joke! What a wonderful staff. The place is set up on solar power, so electricity was not available one morning, but we didn't care. Also the toilets are drop toilets, but they were really nicely done and eco-friendly. For showering, they prepare hot water in a large container above a showerhead at whatever time you request, and there is plenty of hot water for a reasonable length shower.

The cost to see the gorillas in Uganda or Rwanda is $500 per person for the one-hour viewing. This cost is just for the park pass issued by the government. The price increases from there in terms of getting a guide, car or something to take you there, plus lodging, and additional days to do anything else, if you don’t get an all inclusive package.

At the time we traveled to Rwanda, the only airlines we found that flew to Rwanda were Brussels Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and Kenya Airways. The first step in arranging a tour of the gorillas is to reserve your gorilla trekking permit. We started pretty late, only 4 months in advance, and had a bit of trouble getting permits for the dates we wanted. We also utilized Volcanoes Safaris to secure our gorilla permits for us. Because of the high cost, it makes economic sense to get more out of the trip than one day of gorillas. I suggest a tour of the country, an added safari, a trip to Uganda, and/or an additional gorilla day.

In addition to the tour in Rwanda, my wife and I decided on a safari in Kenya for 6 days that ended relaxing on the beach in Mombasa. If I had to do the trip over, I think I may have explored more of Rwanda and also visited Uganda. This seemed to be the most popular tour from the other tourists we met.

I was very worried about mosquitoes before I left on the trip as there are a number of mosquito born illnesses. Due to the high elevation, neither my wife nor I got a single bite in Rwanda. I believe the trek is closer to 9000 feet, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I saw few if any mosquitoes in Rwanda. While we did see more in Kenya we were able to survive relatively unscathed. In any case, we did take malaria pills for this trip.

Kigali Shanty Town

Upon arrival in Kigali, Rwanda, our guide from Volcanoes Safaris picked us up. He took us to the Rwandan Genocide museum in Kigali. It is an extremely well done museum that gives a very interesting insight into the history of Rwanda and what they believe influenced the division between the Hutus and Tutsis. The photographs and stories are horrific, but I don’t believe you can visit Rwanda properly without taking some time to try to understand the tragedy that occurred there in 1994. I took this photograph of a shantytown in Kigali from the garden on the museum grounds. From the museum we were off to our lodge where we relaxed for the rest of the night.

The next morning we were ready for our trek. They seem to try to scare you a bit in terms of the hike. However, if you are in reasonably good shape and you ask for the easiest trek it should be no problem. If you are in poor shape, think twice because you do not get your money back, and if you need to be helped off the mountain it's an additional $150 charge, so you spend a lot of money and see no gorillas.

The easiest hikes can sometimes be only one hour and include only a moderate climb in terms of steepness. Remember, gorillas move wherever they like, so there are no guarantees. It's better to plan for a 3-hour hard hike and be happily surprised how easy it was. We went on what was supposed to be one of the two easiest treks. We were told it would be one hour or less each way, but the gorillas kept moving as we got within 10 minutes of them, and we ended up hiking for 2.5 hours to see them, and don't forget you have to hike out as well (but getting down is easier and faster).

We arrived at the Volcanoes Park headquarters for our gorilla trekking at about 7AM. Individuals who had previously purchased a pass for that day all meet at the headquarters. From there the rangers use some indeterminate method to break the 56 of us into groups of 8 and assign each group a different gorilla group to visit. The two easiest groups to see at the time of our trek were Group 13 and Group Sabyinyo. The most popular, but most difficult group to visit was Group Susa. Group Susa is the most popular because it consists of the largest number of gorillas, 38 in all. I believe the rangers look all of the visitors over and pick the least fit, or those who have said they are looking for an easy hike and assign them to Group 13 or Sabyinyo. The people who are the most fit looking or who have desperately requested Group Susa then get picked, and then somehow everyone else gets divided among the rest, but this is only my conjecture.

Guhonda Largest Mountain Silverback

My wife and I requested to go on a relatively easy hike and we got picked to visit Group Sabyinyo, a group of 9 gorillas. We were pretty happy about this as Group Sabyinyo contains Guhonda, the largest silverback that one can visit. We were told that Guhonda is almost 7’ tall and almost 700 lbs. Our hike was always moderate, but we did have to go through some thick brush of thistles, and got poked a bit (which kind of hurts). They did a really great job of hacking a wide path for us with the machete, which helped. All the hacking away they were doing also slowed the hike way down and made the walking even easier during these sections. We spoke to a couple who said they walked on flat land for 20 minutes and then into the jungle for less then 30 minutes before they saw the gorillas. They visited Group 13.

In terms of gear I brought the Canon 16-35 f2.8, 24-70 f2.8, and 70-200 IS 2.8 and a 1.4x extender along with my 5D Mark II. My wife used a Canon Rebel XTi with the 24-105 f4.0 IS for the trip. I had the 24-70 attached to the 5D Mark II when I first started shooting, but changed after about a dozen shots. We ended up observing the gorillas in an area with pretty dense vegetation, and I ended up shooting all my shots at ISO 6400. This is where the 5D Mark II became a lifesaver. I switched to my 70- 200mm to help isolate the gorillas, but was still not able to get many shots even at 200mm without having bamboo, leaves, branches, etc. obstructing parts of the frame.

In the end I did have to clone out some branches in a few of my final shots. I brought the other lenses in the hopes of getting group shots or other perspectives, but it seemed useless, so once I got my 70-200 on I never changed lenses. In addition you only have 1 hour with the gorillas and it is hard to think about wasting even a minute changing lens back and forth, as things happen quickly. It is also hard to try to take in the whole experience visually as well as try to find position, be polite to the other visitors also trying to take up positions, make some good captures, and decide when to shoot stills and take some video.

Every visit to the gorillas is different. After talking with others who visited different gorilla groups on different days, we found we were rather unlucky. It seemed some people saw the gorillas in the wide open with no lighting problems, and nobody I spoke with saw the gorillas in as dense vegetation as we observed on our trek. It is really different on every visit so there is no way to predict. It does rain quite often in the mountains even when it’s not rainy season and I read a lot of reports where it was quite dark and rainy while visiting the gorillas.

The overall experience viewing the gorillas is amazing. They are so human like. They are even more expressive in the photos than in person, since at the correct exposure you can actually see more details in their faces than you can see when you are looking at them in low natural light.

Gorilla Close Up

At one point the Silverback leader did put on one nice display of strength for us, where he stood up and lunged into a bunch of thick bamboo swinging his arms and cracking it like nothing and making a lot of noise. The display made me look up and watch and I didn't take a photo unfortunately. He definitely was the boss and quite a site. A few of my photos were taken when he was at his closest point to us. I estimate he was about 20 feet away in the photo shown here.

Thinking

Other gorillas in the group got within just a foot of me. One adolescent actually grabbed the leg of one of the people in our group and started pulling him forward. A ranger picked up a big leaf and started hitting the gorilla, who in turn start flailing his arms and making a lot of noise as he ran off and up a tree. It would have made an amazing video, though I was probably too close to focus properly, and too in awe to think to shoot instead of look on in amazement.

We spoke to a bunch of other tourist we met along the way. I have to say I was surprised to learn how many visitors we talked with had reserved two days in a row to see the gorillas and we met one couple going three days in a row. The cost of the visit is pretty high, so we planned it as a one-time shot. Many guests we spoke with planned much longer and more involved trips than we planned as well. People had also told me that before the problems in Congo this year, it was somewhat common for people to do a three-country tour, Uganda, Rwanda, and The Congo.

Three Rwandan Pirates

The day after visiting the gorillas, my wife and went to Lake Gisenyi, which is the city in Rwanda where Lake Kivu is on the Congo border at the city of Goma. We would have loved to go into Goma and the Congo, but with the war that was going on there, it wouldn’t have been a great idea. The drive to Gisenyi was quite pleasant and we got to observe tons of people walking along the road carrying everything imaginable on their head. Once in Gisenyi we walked around the local market, purchased some souvenirs and had lunch at a hotel by the lake. Rwanda is a beautiful country, with very friendly people, and a little more then half of the last of the 700 known mountain gorillas left in the world. Overall Rwanda, the people and the gorillas were wonderful and made for a once in a lifetime adventure for my wife and I that I highly recommend to all.

Tribal Dancer

To learn more about Robert Bukar and to view more photos from Rwanda and his other travels, please visit his site: bukar.com.

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