Rwanda is not your ordinary big five destination (although you could arguably tick off your African checklist at Akagera National Park). Instead, most visitors to this tiny east African country come here with ‘monkey business’ on their minds…
Growing up as a young barefoot boy on a remote Eastern Cape farm, I must have read those original Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs a dozen times. And ever since, I dreamed of trekking into those fecund jungles of deepest, darkest Africa, and hopefully come face to face with the great apes of the mother continent Fast-forward five decades to the Great Rift Valley, and I’m fortunate enough to find myself in Rwanda, winding my way into a jade world where an incredible 17 primate species have been documented. Up ahead, blue ridges spike high against neighbouring Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the most fecund jungle imaginable simmers all around. We’re 30 minutes into the ascent from Volcanoes National Park headquarters, with our group quietly tramping through vast fields of stinging nettles and the wayward sway of looming bamboo forests. Shafts of light refract through the towering trunks, tinting the surrounds in verdant tones.
Tender shoots from these mega-grasses pop up from the loamy ground alongside the trail and, according to our guides, these are the staple food of Gorilla beringei beringei – the Eastern highlands mountain gorilla. Within minutes, we began to see signs of one of the local ‘families’, known as the Igisha troop after their alpha male. The various troops are named for these imposing silverback apes, with extensive providing sanctuary for 20 individual groups. Twelve of these troops have been habituated over the past few decades, but interactions with humans are strictly controlled by Rwandan Parks Authorities, enforcing a minimum distance of 7 m and no more than one hour of ‘face time’.We approached stealthily to within minutes of first contact, where the guides instructed us to drop our bags. This allows you to move more rapidly through the bamboo thickets, and we were soon leopard-crawling as we followed the trackers into a large forest clearing.
And then, just when you think there’s nothing that can top all the Rift Valley blessings up to this point, you lock eyes with the indomitable Igisha himself. The hulking silverback male is squatting down in the grass, contentedly snacking on bamboo shoots while harrumphing from deep within the pit of his considerable stomach. Boom! Coming face to face with Rwanda’s critically endangered gorillas is everything you’d expect this bucket-list experience to be, and yet so much more. In fact, locking eyes with a massive silverback makes for emotions where words begin to fail…I had stopped next to one of the trackers, squeezed against a dense bush while watching through my viewfinder, when I felt the guide tugging my trouser leg. ‘Sorry’, I whispered, assuming I was too close to Igisha, moving further back to nearly inside the bush.
Seconds later, the ‘guide’ hugged my thighs, and it finally dawned on me: This wasn’t a human squeeze, but rather that of an inquisitive juvenile gorilla that had sneaked past our watchful minders to check out this puny and hairless ape. Suffice it to say, I jumped two feet in the air, and the youngster scuttled back into the bush! The next hour blurred into a time warp of soulful, brown-eyed stares, sub-sonic stomach rumbles, deep-down-from-the-belly sighs, the juicy crunch of bamboo shoots, and – every so often – an unashamedly brazen gorilla fart.
We got a couple of minutes of ‘extra time’ before we had to say goodbye to Igisha and his family – they no longer felt like a troop to us – and then watched as they ghosted away into the jade shadowland of their tranquil bamboo forest surrounds. It is truly difficult to put into words the thoughts and emotions that pulse through your collective consciousness when you experience that incredible moment. And in many ways, I don’t want to…
Words and Photography by Jacques Marais
