Those who know Peter well will recognise the pronouncement of “happy birthday” every time a glass is raised. It has become our accustomed joke… Explained to strangers in our midst as “well, it is someone’s birthday, somewhere”.

So when Peter said “happy birthday” as we raised our pre-dinner wine glasses on our first night at Nyungwe Lodge, I thought nothing of it. Thank you, I said, as I usually do!

But in a luxury lodge, walls have ears. And despite my protestations that I didn’t want dessert after dinner, our waiter arrived with two spoons, and a special request that we just try something small…. This!

Well, I didn’t have the heart to tell them it wasn’t my birthday at all! Hope we didn’t look too embarrassed in this photo they insisted on taking of us on my faux birthday.

I guess I should be pleased they didn’t sing as well!

Tuesday. Gorilla Day!

In 2013, 266 New Zealanders visited the gorillas in Rwanda. Today we get to be one of the few in 2014.

A civilised 6.30am pickup from our lodge. Closed shoes, check. Garden gloves, check. Raincoats, check. We arrive at ParkHQ… The car park is filled with dozens of 4wd vehicles. Each day, just 80 tourists get to see the gorillas – in groups of 8, visiting one of the 10 gorilla families that has been habituated to tourists, for just one hour (strictly enforced). There are another 8 groups of gorillas reserved for research purposes, never visited by tourists.

The gardens of ParkHQ are thronging with people. An African song and dance performance I’d in full swing, drivers are running around registering their tourists, guides are sussing us all out, a group of local primary school children arrive – they’re being taken to see the golden monkeys, to educate them early. Coffee with cremora… Memories! You can tell the Americans – they’re the ones in the designer trekking gear (though to be fair, that type is in the minority). Most are just like us – seasoned travellers. In fact, what really stands out about a Rwanda is that there are almost no novice travellers – we have never been in such experienced traveller company!

The guides and drivers gather. The negotiation has begun

It’s like a third world trading floor down there on the lawn as the haggle about which tourists are going with which guides to which gorillas. The options range from short and easy (3hrs there and back, plus your hour with the gorillas), up to a major trek of 8 -10 hours round trip. Emmanuel looks pleased as punch… He has secured us a moderate walk, with the head of guides (Felix has been working with the gorillas for 28 years here and in Uganda), assisted by Francois, to whom he defers as the most experienced guide, with 37 years experience. He is honestly more monkey than man.

A bone crunching 45 minute drive to the start of our 2 1/2 hour trek, porters eagerly awaiting our arrival. We are encouraged to take a porter, even if we don’t need one… And I must say our man Peter (coincidentally) was invaluable in not only carrying our backpack, but particularly in taking me by the hand on the difficult bits of the hike.

We hike first through village farmland on the edge of the park – mainly potatoes which love the rich volcanic soil, and pyrethrum daisies, a cash crop used as crop rotation. An hour in we are met by a trio of armed guards at the low stone wall that surrounds the remaining 120 sq km of National Park. The AK47s are, we’re told, coming with us in case we meet the buffaloes – and there’s certainly plenty of evidence of buffaloes on the trail, and even occasional elephant dung. Not that they actually shoot the buffalo, we’re told – they scare them off by shooting into the ground.

The hike is challenging in parts – particularly the steep parts, fringed with stinging nettles. Then, suddenly, we’re there… A bunch of park trackers appear in the clearing. They’ve been tracking our gorilla group, and have led our guides to them. We dump the bags, the walking sticks, all food ande water… Taking only ourselves and our cameras, we head through the bush to find ourselves literally in the midst of the gorillas.

At this point, crazy French woman in our group, on her 10th visit to the gorillas, with her body covered in tattoos of those she’s seen before, discovers that the giant lens on her camera, that needs a full body harness for her to carry, is going to be completely useless unless she’s planning to take their fingerprints!

We are standing less than 3m from the alpha male, the number one silverback in a family of 20 gorillas – Amohora – that has 5 silverbacks (mature males) amongst them. He is huge. He looks at me, rises slowly and starts walking towards me. Crouch down, stay calm, says Felix. Francois meanwhile is communicating with the group in “gorilla”. They talk back, they clearly know him.

I crouch down. Stop clicking the camera. He brushes firmly past me, strong and soft. Almost past, a quick flick of his hip, and his back foot pushes me over. I am more amazed than afraid. Awed, really.  He settles in his new spot, head resting on hands, thinking….

A pregnant female suns herself, resting in the clearing. She’s 8 months pregnant, one month to go. She looks uncomfortable.

We wander further into their resting place… Gorillas everywhere, within reach. Juveniles playing the trees. A mother determined to hide her one month old baby from us, but every time she tucks him in, his little inquisitive head pops out, determined to see what’s going on.

Our group is mostly focused on getting the perfect photo. Peter is just happy to sit and watch – though when I force him to sit so I can get him and a gorilla in the same shot, he ends up kneeling in a patch of stinging nettle! Sorry Peter!

Our time is almost up – how fast an hour flies. We are mesmerised by a family group.

Young one being weaned is carried by daddy, mother following on behind. The care for his son is clearly visible on the father’s face, and in the way he gathers him up protectively to prevent him from straying too close to us.

Behind him, another female picks her nose, and eats the pickings…

They are part monkey, but very much part human. Visiting them is incredible. An experience beyond words – and to have done so under the tutelage of a guide who is so very much part of their family gave us even more insight into their habits and their lives.

Each year, thousands of people gather for a naming ceremony, where they name all the babies born that year – the gorillas, of course, do not attend. But when a gorilla dies, the guides bury him in one of two gorilla cemeteries – those who knew Diana Fossey are buried with her, at her memorial, the others near to ParkHQ. These are people who care deeply about the gorillas, and from my viewpoint, that care was clearly reciprocated.

At 4.23am the phone rings! This is our 4am wake up call – clearly attention to detail does not extend to the night shift.

We have exactly 22 minutes to unpack, find and don our trekking gear, race along the path to the main block, down a cup of coffee and a pastry, pick up our brown paper bag – packed breakfast – and leap into our vehicle to meet our fellow Trekkers who depart the National Park headquarters, 15 minutes drive way, promptly at 5am.

Phew! A few things forgotten… Insect repellent, sunblock, hats, cash to tip our walking guide… Hmmmm. We do without the supplies, with no apparent ill effects, and Peter borrows cash from our driver, who is carrying around an even bigger wedge of local currency than we are (in part because he has somehow managed to acquire smaller RWF1,000 notes.

As an aside, I am becoming confused by all the zeroes on the money here! Completely failed to correctly calculate that we were paying the equivalent of USD80 for a bottle of nice but not spectacular South African red wine at the hotel in Kigali… At least here in the lodge the wine list is already converted, although USD70 for a bottle of Edelrood – the cheapest on the list – is pretty rich! Mind you, I guess one should consider the challenge of getting it here (see previous post about the long road trip)!

Anyway, back to our early morning start. Of course our convoy of 3 vehicles did not leave on time, despite being just seven guests…. us, an interesting slightly younger American couple from Ohio who have been in Madagascar to see the lemurs for her and are now in Rwanda to see the gorillas for him, and a trio of aloof (and much fitter than the rest of us) Belgian men of about our age. Just like the army, says Peter, hurry up to wait. I knew he would say that!

We depart in due course, in pitch darkness. Light comes quickly on the equator, and when it does (about an hour later) we are still driving.

Going into the Park by a different way, we are told, long drive. Packed breakfast – not that flash, they clearly don’t do “padkos” in Rwanda – consumed on the way.

We disembark in a clearing in the forest – more like a jungle really, complete with Tarzan vines – for a briefing with our park ranger “my name is Hope”. He tells us the trackers have found our chimps but he can’t say how long it will take us to get to them because they are on the move. We walk. We walk up, we walk down… Never flat. Peter’s knee is not happy with the down, my general fitness is left wanting on the up.

We stop… I have an idea, says Hope, let’s take a short cut. Obviously designed to get us closer to our quarry, so we agree… NOT a good idea!

Down down down the route plunges… Not a path, not a track, more like an erosion channel conveniently spotted by our guide as a potential way to get us down fast. I am terrified, and battling. Every second step I find myself slipping, the ground moving under my feet. Belgians stride on ahead. US couple going slowly but a little more competent. Peter very slow behind me – down is not good. Hope takes my hand – left me help you, he says. Put one foot here, then here, down we go, slipping and sliding. I can see where I’m going, sweat pouring into my eyes, glasses unable to keep hold on my nose… Just have to trust the guide.

We make it! Muddy, exhausted… Never has so much sweat been expended going downhill… And suddenly it’s all forgotten… Our first sighting, there they are, up up in the trees, easy to see, hard to photograph.

The next hour is spent following them, looping round to get ahead and below their route through the jungle. Then as if to tease us, they seem to decide that walking along the path, our path, is actually the easy route for them too… Between us, we snap hundreds of pics of the butts of a troupe of chimpanzees!

The trackers stay with us – just as I’m straggling behind, the tail end tracker taps me on the shoulder. Look behind, he says. Sitting there, not 3m away from me, is a big male chimp… He is literally staring straight into my eyes. So human – I entirely forget to even raise my camera. Sometimes it’s the picture you take away in your head that is the most powerful. Did you get him, asks Hope? Yes I say (but not on my camera).

Later he poses for us along the trail.

Then just as we are almost at the pick up point – another clearing where our driver is waiting for us – the chimps turn off the path and head back down into the bush. I am exhausted, but elated.

I have been fortunate over the years to have many wildlife experiences, most all of them in vehicles of some sort. Tracking animals on foot is different, more frustrating and certainly more personally challenging. Perhaps that’s what makes it all the more rewarding, that you have literally sweated to find your prey.

Or maybe it is just these animals – chimpanzees – so unmistakably human not just in their looks, but in their mannerisms, in the way they look at you, in the way they move together taking care of each other and looking out for the young ones. We watched a mother climb down from her tree to show a juvenile how to get up to the tree the rest of the family were in… Human cousins indeed.