STORIES

​So here we are in the north of Rwanda, high up the side of a volcano, taking photographs of a giant silver-backed gorilla like wildlife-crazed paparazzi. The big muscled leader is not even remotely interested in what we’re doing. He’s got his back to us and he’s stalking through the undergrowth with a King Kong swagger.

 

Up a nearby tree a baby gorilla scratches his armpits with all the cuteness of a birthday card cover star while beneath him small clusters of black humps bob up and down as other youngsters navigate the grassy tunnels created by their elders.

 

All is well with the gorilla world.

 

Then it happens. The bushes behind us explode. With our eyes glued to viewfinders and digital screens we did not see it coming. The guides shout warnings. Our group squeals with terror. We turn and see high a velocity black shadow powering towards us from the wet vegetation.

 

Fast living gorilla teenagers

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We jump to one side and the blur bursts past us and accelerates down the slope. Our shock turns to nervous laughter. Now we can see the cause of our jungle red alert. Two juvenile gorillas had transformed themselves into a fast moving fur ball by holding each other’s hands and feet like hairy circus clowns. Then with a lot of gorilla bravado they had transformed themselves into a giant hairy bowling ball.

 

Whew. Just kids messing about.

 

Rwanda is like that. You expect one thing and you get something completely different. I’d thought my gorilla trek would maybe offer the chance to maybe see a family of apes hiding out in the trees. I never expected to be within touching distance of a group of 39, let alone almost get mowed down by two fast living gorilla teenagers.

 

My great ape odyssey had started in the northern village of Ruhenghri the previous evening. I’d arrived late because we got lost. After skirting the village three times we employed a small child to point in all the right directions. The benefit of our cross-country wandering had been to scout out the surroundings. In the north of the country, seven volcanoes dominated landscape, their peaks sheathed in mist and flanked by towering primeval trees. Somewhere hidden in this Godzilla film backdrop were the gorillas. All 700 of them.

 

800,000 people were slaughtered

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Like the rest of the country Rugenheri is impossibly green. Patchwork farming fields are stitched together by red soil paths even on the vertical slopes of the surrounding hills. And, as the country is densely populated, roadsides are packed with men pushing bicycles loaded with crops, women in brightly coloured shawls with bright-eyed babies on their backs, be-suited men waving umbrellas and farmers striding out from fields with machetes or rakes slung over their shoulders perhaps with the occasional goat on a lead.

 

The freshly paved roads, the new schools, rebuilt churches, irrigated farm land and continuous construction work are the physical manifestation of billions of dollars in aid money that was pumped into the country after the genocide. During 100 days in 1994 at least 800,000 people were slaughtered during the last terrifying genocide of the 20th century. That’s six people massacred every minute. In the calm evening of the countryside, this astonishing statistic felt like something from another planet not modern Rwanda.

 

Reinforcing the sense of complete modern normality was the screening of the Miss Kigali competition on the television of my hotel restaurant. While I tucked into something that vaguely resembled meat (or it could be fish), the guys clustered around the TV to discuss the woman who had just been voted the capital’s new beauty queen. “Her parents have a lot of influence,” my waitress says, clearing my plate. “I don’t think it was a fair win.” Then looking at my leftovers, she asks, “What’s wrong, didn’t you like your gorilla steak? Just kidding, it was deep fried beef.”

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A crash course in gorilla tactics

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The next morning still suffering from red meat indigestion, I set off for the National Park office to join one of the four groups that will meet gorillas. If you’re thinking of visiting them yourself, be prepared. Only 32 permits are issued every day divided between four groups of a maximum of eight. In the high season of December to January, demand is high and you have to pay well in advance. For your US$500 you are allowed one hour with the gorillas, no flash photography and the protection of AK47-toting guards who are keeping an eye out for poachers and wildlife that’s a little more carnivorous than gorilla.

 

I ask to join the ‘Susa’ group, this is the biggest tribe of gorillas in Rwanda with
39 members, but the most difficult to reach, because they hide deep inside the forest. In the dawn light chill, we listen to our guide Oliver describe the group. He has pictures on a board. “These are the twins,” he says, as if he were the proud mother himself. “They are three-years-old and the oldest to have survived since gorilla monitoring started.”

 

Oliver then uses his blackboard point to identify the leader of the pack. “He is called Crier, because when he was a baby he was always crying. He doesn’t cry any more, he’s the boss.” We look at silverback Crier with admiration. “He’s tough, no silverback tolerates a rival male. That rival is either killed or forced to leave.” Oliver has been involved with the animals all his life, he’s seen them from the cradle to the grave, and just by the impression and shape of each jet-black nose he could identify any member of the Susa group 50 metres away.

 

So this was the plan. When the scouts find Crier and his tribe (they’ve been in the forest since first light) they radio Oliver and we crash through the undergrowth to meet them and their furry friends.

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Trees scratched by gorilla claws

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At the base of a volcano, far from where the primitive track is being broadened with fresh black tarmac, way beyond the nearby jail populated by marching prisoners in pink jumpsuits, the track dissolved into potholed mud. We got out near a military base, met our armed guards and strode out across the countryside. Up we went, past the round tribal huts, the irrigated fields, the hand ploughed soil, the child farmers and the women bent double under the weight of collected vegetables. We climbed higher to open fields where fingers of mist gripped the wet grass. We stopped at the dry stone wall that separated the forest from the fields, a place where the eucuplatis trees had been scratched by giant gorilla claws.

 

The forest was as dense as a fairytale nightmare. There was a track somewhere but it was hidden by layers of clinging vegetation, knee high bushes and branches that scraped the ground from impossibly high trees. For two hours we macheted our way through the undergrowth, single file, our progress accompanied by the crackle of the radio, the huffing and puffing of Marlboro stained lungs and the zipping sounds of thorny bushes ripping clothes. We were lucky Oliver said, it could have been worse, it could have been raining.

 

Eventually, we groaned our way into a clearing and met two weather beaten trackers with their fingers to their lips. In the trees above were three shadowy figures, my first glimpse of gorillas. Oliver’s harsh whisper urged us downhill, we stumbled over rotten branches and slide down into a clearing were we saw two more.

 

It was such a shock I couldn’t believe it was real. The ‎young gorillas were stretched out on a giant branch like teenagers hanging out in a park. One was looking straight at us, his head resting on folded arms and his legs gently kicking behind him. His friend was looking at something more entertaining in the undergrowth lazily chewing a long root. They looked so familiar, that I found it difficult to imagine they are real. For a moment they could be an elaborate joke, two guys just dressed in gorilla suits.

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Those eyes look familiar

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Oliver urged us on. The rest of the gorilla group was moving. They were going downhill in search of fresh food supplies and somewhere to sleep off the afternoon before making night-time nests. We moved down through the gorilla-made grass tunnels and stopped to line up behind Oliver.

 

Just below the gorilla community was on the move. Black humps ducked in and out of the grass behind the broad silver back of their leader, while other stopped to take the air. There was a mother with a baby clutched to her chest chewing wet leaves, to the side of the path two youngsters were clubbing each other with their fists and up trees there were tiny gorillas arranged in impossible positions like hairy Cirque du Soleil acrobats about to take flight.

 

We were close enough to see the gorillas’ fur flicker in the breeze, but it was the eyes that took my breath away. So incredibly familiar. And so shockingly vulnerable.

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