Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Mountain Gorillas

We’ve spent the last 10 days or so in Central East Africa, crossing over the equator 3 times and traversing through Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.  As I write this we are currently in Kampala, capital city of Uganda, and will tomorrow head to Jinja before heading back once again to Kenya.  

We had three nights in Nairobi.  We had been warned about Nairobi, so found the city to be better than we were expecting, although we did spend the majority of our time in an outer suburb which is regarded as slightly more affluent.  A recently built Galleria Shopping Mall possibly signifies a movement towards enhanced economic prosperity (the mall was very nice, but still only about 2/3rds occupied)?  

We went to an elephant orphanage, where baby orphaned elephants (usually as a result of poaching activities) are rescued from the wild and cared for for their first few years before finally being reintroduced to the wild.  The elephants were all very young, only some 3 or 4 feet tall and quite playful.  The keepers took the place of the elephants mother for the years they are at the orphanage - the keepers even sleep with the elephants - so the interaction between keeper and elephant was quite unlike any other we had seen.  

At the elephant orphanage - a local school group was also in attendance

Baby elephant getting a bath from his/her keeper 

Kissy kissy

After the visit to the elephant orphanage we swung by a giraffe centre.  At the giraffe centre we could hand-feed giraffes - they would even take the wheat pellet from your mouth!

Once we were back on the truck we spent 3 long days of driving to make it to Rwanda and the location of the gorilla trek.  In doing so we crossed the equator twice (once heading north out of Nairobi and then again as we headed south through Uganda - navigating around Lake Victoria to Rwanda).  The first time we passed through the equator we did so at 9,000 ft - so we were all dressed in our winter jackets and rugged up - it was slightly ironic to move from winter to summer and dressed in our warmest clothes!

Playing soccer with locals during a lunch break -
 they come out in droves to investigate what is going on!

Uganda, and more so Rwanda, are very picturesque countries - the terrain became increasingly more mountainous - with rolling mountains stretching all around and fading into a white haze.  Despite the mountainous terrain, the country is densely populated, accordingly, evidence of crops and terracing went to the top of the mountain.  People were everywhere.  Even the steepest, and most winding roads had people riding their bicycles or walking along the road. 

We arrived in Musanze the afternoon before our gorilla trek.  The following morning, an early start, with a 6.15am pickup and a short drive to the Volcano National Park.  Once there we, along with some 40 other tourists, were split up into groups of 8 people - one group for each gorilla family (there are 8 families - so 64 people per day).  We hopped back into our offroad vehicles - all vehicles heading in different directions to find the different families and spent about 45 minutes driving along the worst road we have experienced in Africa (if it could even be called a road!)  From there it was a 30 minute or so walk through fields and villages to the National Park, over a stone wall, and about a one hour walk to the gorillas.  As the gorillas move daily, they have trackers who follow the family giving out the location to our guide.  Most of the walk involved crashing through the bush led by a man cutting a path with a machete.  It wasn’t physically too hard, but the terrain was steep and slippery, and there wasn’t much to grab ahold of other than stingy nettle branches - but it was fun.  

The silverback warns other gorillas who had been fighting amongst themselves

Chow down

The gorillas themselves were fantastic to behold.  After initially spotting 3 who were playing together in the bushes, we proceeded to most of the rest of the family of 18 (there were about 10 or so in sight).  They were all sitting down and eating roots of trees in a clear patch of land - so there was literally nothing obstructing our views of the gorillas as they interacted with one another and ate.  Although a distance of 7 metres is supposed to be maintained, this rule was only loosely enforced, and for most of the time we were  no more than 3 or 4 metres away from the family.  A young gorilla, which had clearly grown up used to daily visits from humans, was quite happy to perform for the camera and almost seemed to lavish the attention (the older gorillas just ignored us for the most part).

We were all on a high at the end of that day - having so many of those powerful and almost human animals so close and interacting with one another and from time to time us or the guides was trippy.  On our return to camp we were ready for a quiet afternoon and early bed.  The following day was a free-day where we chose to head into the local town to see what was about (very little) and dine at a local restaurant (a buffet meal for ~US$2, or ~US$2.5 with one piece of meat).

Leaving early again the next day we headed to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, where we visited the genocide memorial.  It was an incredibly well done and respectful museum and memorial highlighting the history of and after-effects of the 1994 genocide.  

From the memorial we proceeded back to Uganda and on to Lake Bunyonyi where we camped on the edge of the lake.  During the day we had there I went on a tour across the lake and to a village of Pygmy’s who had been removed from the mountains that they once inhabited and effectively left without a home by their government.  Unfortunately another sad story.  But the people were very pleased to see us (part of the proceeds from our tour contributes towards food and land for them) and performed a number of dances for us during our brief stay.  

We have now returned to Kampala which is currently hosting the ICC Africa Region Division One Twenty20  international 20/20 cricket competition between Namibia, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.  Today we saw Ghana play Nigeria.  Unlike the soccer game in Zimbabwe where we the stadium was packed beyond capacity, our group of 12 or so that went along to watch comprised probably 90% of the total spectator population.  However the game was closely fought and came down to the last few balls, with Ghana snatching victory probably only because Nigeria’s opening batsman dislocated his shoulder earlier in the day when fielding and couldn’t bat.  We had a great time and I think the players were pleased to see us enjoying ourselves.

Tomorrow the home team Uganda play two games, Ghana in the morning and Namibia in the afternoon.  I had thought to try and catch both games with some of the others on the truck.  I might even take along our small chilly-bin as you can take your own food and drink into the ground (and the game is free to watch as well!)