G for Gorillas

Klean Kigali
After we had no luck at the ORTPN offices with gorilla permits and had done our emailing courtesy of the Bourbon Cafe, we plotted a course for the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre and made our way there down the hills and around the roundabouts. This city is pretty relaxed as far as African cities go, especially the taxi drivers. It’s also pretty clean.
The Centre is really harrowing and this kind of stuff just beggars belief. Not only do they deal with the Rwandan genocide, but also those involving Herero, Jews, Armenian and Serbs. It also houses the mass graves of over 250 000 unidentified victims in the grounds. The UN, Belgium and France have joined the crocodiles as “James’s persona non grata”.
We got there late-ish on Monday and not having any joy finding campsites, we’d decided to camp in the car park. (We’d heard from an overland driver at Lake Bunyoni that it is do-able) Probably the safest place in the city as the Centre is guarded around the clock.
We were sat in the car park plotting our route for the next couple of days when we exchanged pleasantries with a Canadian guy who worked in the Centre and chatted to the driver of an overland truck. Next minute, our Canadian came back and offered us a room in his house for the night. Took about a second to decide and we were on our way to his house. Turns out that Morley and his wife, Johane were coming to the end of a year-long volunteering stint in Rwanda, so our timing was perfect!
Spent an interesting evening with them finding out what they had been doing. I am really impressed with the volunteering culture of the north Americans, it certainly isn’t a South African trait that I’m aware of. Johane had decided to do it as she reached her half century, fantastic! It seemed like just the right time to crack our bottle of Chilean red wine we’d been keeping for a special occasion. Rebecca drew a picture for them and their night watchman, Adam, with zero prompting, washed Tom Cruiser and that was not a mean feat, he was filthy.

The next morning we had breakfast with them. Morley and Adam walked off to the VSO offices and we gave Johane a lift to work en route to the market. Seven days later they leave Africa behind them to take up their “normal” lives again. What a fantastic experience for them.
How many of us would open our homes to complete strangers? Morley and Johane, thank you so much for your hospitality.

Gorilla Permit Tracking
We then set off for Ruhengeri (now renamed Musanze) to try our luck with the gorilla permits closer to the action. The drive was amazing, the road was windy and we just seemed to climb and climb. Our coffee stop with a brilliant view was again characterized by a quickly formed group of interested onlookers. We checked in with the local ORTPN office in Ruhengeri which is through the gates with the gorillas on top on the main road but then it is hidden away on the first floor of the building behind the one facing the road. The giveaway is the gorilla poster in the window. This was pretty much a waste of time as all this office seems to do is deliver a fax of the permit holders for the following day to Park HQ. We headed for and camped at a brilliant place just 200m from the Park HQ called Kinigi Guest House. It is a perfect place to stopover for those with gorilla permits and there is a rapid turnover of people, also for people like us with no permits and who need to walk to the HQ every morning to hope for no-shows. It’s run by a Women’s Association in collaboration with the park. We bumped into 3 guys in a UK-registered Defender we’d last seen at Jungle Junction, Nairobi. They had got really lucky as a tour operator had had 2 spare permits for one day and one for the next day. We were up early the next morning and waiting at Park HQ to see if any spare permits turned up. There are 7 gorilla groups visited by 8 tourists each and sometimes another group is taken to a “research” group. Unfortunately no spare spots were to be had and the 3 of us headed back to the campsite for an egg and bacon breakfast. The plan was that I would go first, Kaz would look after Rebecca and then we’d reverse roles on another day.
We’d also chatted to an American who’d organised a last minute permit through Greg at Amahoro Tours (+250 08687448). Greg is based in Musanze and so we thought we’d pay him a visit. As the roof top tent was up, I decided to catch a motor taxi, which is a motorbike, into the town only 12 kms away. Anna, Rebecca’s new friend, who ran the curio shop had a brother, John, in the car park with one of these bikes so, after some negotiation re price, off we went. It turns out that John is a school boy with no licence, so instead of him handing the bike to the real taxi driver, he hears I have a licence, he gets the spare helmet and off we go: Mzungu Richard at the business end! Riding in hiking boots nogal!
About 5 minutes after setting off, we ran out of petrol. As petrol is more expensive in Kinigi village than Musanze, John reckons we can freewheel the remaining 9 or so kms to town, through 3 sets of policemen as it turns out. Needless to say, the sight of a mzungu at the helm of one of these taxis is not the norm so the cry of “mzungu” reverberated through the countryside for the rest of the trip. Luckily except for three stretches, it was downhill so we didn’t really have to push much. The one intersection under the eyes of the Rwandan cops was the worst, but they didn’t seem very worried.
Eventually found Greg and set him to permit hunting for us. July and August are 2 of the busiest months and he wasn’t hugely optimistic. Bought some bread and oil and off we went, the motorbike now filled with 2 litres of petrol!
Trip back was fairly uneventful except the bike did suffer from some fuel blockage which meant that we’d lose power and then speed up again.

Took a walk towards the park boundary in the afternoon hoping to catch a glimpse of the gorillas which sometimes come out the park to eat potatoes! Of course we attracted a retinue of hangers-on who attached themselves for the duration of the walk. No such thing as a quiet, peaceful walk in the fresh air. No self respecting gorilla would show himself with this noisy bunch of boys around.

Had sundowners in the lounge with a fire going in the grate. The weather has been overcast since we arrived and we had a few glimpses of the top of the Sabyinyo Volcano but none of the others that surround us. I had a Primus beer, which is one of the local Rwandan beers that is served in a 720ml bottle!

Next morning was a repeat of day one. I’m dressed for tracking gorillas, Kaz and Rebecca come along to see if we are successful or not. The cars start streaming in and I am again looking for operators who may have a spare permit, chatting to Alphonse in the office and the Chief Park Warden making sure they remember me from the previous day. The waiting drags on as people come in late. It is really nerve wracking because even though we have the luxury of being able to hang around here for weeks, it would be nice for our luck to turn. Eventually it looks like there may be a space in one of the groups. No, it turns out there are two spare spaces in the same group! Rebecca, luckily, is very happy to stay with Anna and the ladies from the lodge so she and Kaz sprint off to change and get tracking clothes on. I am happily handing Alphonse $1000 for the privilege of tracking gorillas. We can’t believe that another item on our life’s wish list is about to be ticked off. We’d missed the initial briefing but who cares.
Kaz returns, we climb into a combi, which had brought two other group members to track the gorillas, and off we go to find the Hirwa group of primates. Interesting that even though you’ve paid a king’s ransom for the permit, you still need to organise your own transport to the parking points from where you hike to the gorilla areas and transport for your guide.
Luckily these were “our” gorillas which live on the closest volcano and ironically not far from where we’d walked the previous day. Our sighting was perfect. They were relaxing in a clearing and we were all able to watch them play, grunt, groom and just sleep. The silverback was some distance away from the first group we watched so we moved down to see him, but he was quite pointedly keeping his back to us. The hour we spent with them was really special.

Tips for getting permits or “What would we do differently in trying to get a last minute permit?”
Visit the Kigali ORTPN more often on the days that you are in Kigali, even every couple of hours. Kelly, who we met in Kinigi, had been in the office about 4 hours after us and got a permit.
Don’t bother with their waiting list. Fact is, they would rather deal with someone face-to-face than try to phone around to the names on their list, especially in peak season like now.
Don’t bother with visiting the Ruhengeri/Musanze ORTPN office, they will refer you back to Kigali
Contact Greg at Amahoro Tours in advance if possible and get him to phone around
Be persistent, patient and flexible. Make sure that Alphonse knows that you will be around as long as it takes to get a permit.
Hope that you are in a group with their own transport so you can hitch a lift.

Lake Kivu
Packed up finally from Kinigi and headed towards Gisenyi on Lake Kivu for a day or two. This is an area that Tracks4Africa (“Tracks”) has very scanty info on, i.e. nothing. We had to head towards Goma, shown on Tracks as being in Rwanda not DRC. The road is under construction but a pleasant drive none the less.
There is nothing exciting in Gisenyi, especially when the weather is overcast. The Boulangerie de Gisenyi did have yummy doughnuts though. Found our way to the border with the DRC but decided we’d give it a miss this trip!
We headed to the Paradis de Malahide Motel which is 8kms from town just past the Primus brewery. Very nice location and good birding.
They didn’t have camping and the manager Fidel was not around to ask so we decided to head back to familiar territory. Yep, you guessed it; Kinigi Guest House!
The entry in Lonely Planet on Gisenyi was obviously written when the author was under the influence of something a bit stronger than the local Primus!

Rain en route back and Uganda, here we come again!.

Did we like Rwanda? Oh no, we loved it!!