An Hour with the Mountain Gorillas on Rwanda's Volcanoes

Five volcanoes on the border

Volcanoes National Park covers the Rwandan side of the Virunga range, where five volcanoes stand along the north-western border: Karisimbi, the highest, then Bisoke, Sabyinyo, Gahinga and Muhabura. Their lower slopes are farmed right up to the park, in small fields of potatoes and beans on the dark volcanic soil. Above the last fields a stone wall marks the boundary, and the forest begins: bamboo on the lower slopes, then a moss-hung woodland of hagenia trees, and open heath with giant lobelias towards the summits. Every visit into the forest, to the animals or up a summit, goes with the park's rangers.

Musanze, the town below the park

Musanze, the town long known as Ruhengeri, lies on the plain at the foot of the volcanoes, about two to three hours by road from Kigali. It has the hotels, restaurants, banks and busy market of a provincial town, and on a clear morning the volcanoes stand over its streets. The park headquarters at Kinigi, where the treks and climbs begin, is a short drive north, and lodges are spread through the foothills between the town and the park. Beyond Musanze the road continues west to Rubavu on Lake Kivu.

The morning briefing at Kinigi

A gorilla day begins early at the park headquarters at Kinigi, where the visitors of the day gather with their permits for a briefing on the rules. The rangers then form small groups, each led by a guide and assigned one gorilla family. Every family has grown used to people through years of daily visits by rangers, which is what makes a visit at close range possible. The families live at different distances from the park's edge, so one group may be back by lunchtime while another walks most of the day. Each group drives on from Kinigi to the edge of the park nearest its family, often on rough tracks between the fields, and trackers, out since dawn from the place where the family slept, radio its position to the guide.

The walk up to the family

The walk starts on paths between fields and houses, then crosses the stone wall into the forest. Inside there is often no path at all: the trackers cut one with machetes through bamboo, nettles and wet undergrowth, on slopes that stay muddy for much of the year. Porters wait at the start of each trek and can be hired for the day to carry a pack and give a hand on the steep ground; a porter is paid, and guides, trackers and porters are usually tipped at the end. A short way from the family the packs are left with the porters, and the last stretch is walked with a camera only.

An hour with a gorilla family

Once the family is found, the visit lasts one hour, timed by the guide. A family is led by a silverback, the adult male with the silver-grey back, and made up of the females and their young, and the hour is spent watching them feed on leaves and stems, rest, groom one another and, among the young, play. The guide speaks to them in low, rumbling calls that tell the family the group means no harm.

The rules of the park hold for every trekker. The minimum age is fifteen. No one with a cold, flu or other illness treks, because a human illness can pass to the gorillas. A distance is kept, and when a gorilla comes closer the group steps back as the guide directs; voices stay low, cameras are used without flash, and no one eats, drinks or smokes near the family.

Golden monkeys in the bamboo

Golden monkeys live in the bamboo of the lower slopes: small, quick monkeys with orange-gold backs and dark limbs, which feed on the young shoots and leap from stem to stem. A visit to a troop used to people starts with a briefing at Kinigi like the gorilla trek and needs a permit of its own; the walk is usually shorter and gentler, and the time with the monkeys is again one hour. It fills a morning on its own or the day after the gorillas. In the shade of the bamboo, with the troop always on the move, photographs take patience.

Climbing Bisoke and Karisimbi

Bisoke is climbed in a day: a steep path through bamboo and hagenia forest leads to the summit, where a crater lake fills the top of the volcano, and the way down takes most of the afternoon. Karisimbi, the highest of the volcanoes, is a climb of two days with a night in tents on its slopes; the nights are cold, and the summit is often in cloud, with frost or hail. Both climbs start at Kinigi and are booked through the park authority like the treks. Altitude sickness is a risk on the high summits, Karisimbi's above all, and a slow pace on the way up helps.

Dian Fossey's tomb

The tomb of Dian Fossey, the American scientist who studied the mountain gorillas of these volcanoes for nearly two decades, lies in the forest of the saddle between Karisimbi and Bisoke, at the site of the research camp she founded. Little of the camp remains, and her grave lies beside those of gorillas she knew. The hike there climbs steeply through the forest and takes a few hours there and back; like the other walks in the park, it starts with the briefing at Kinigi.

Burera and Ruhondo, the twin lakes

East of Musanze, two lakes fill deep valleys below the eastern volcanoes: Burera to the north and Ruhondo to the south, lower down, with a narrow ridge of land between them. The hills around them are terraced and farmed down to the water, small islands rise from Burera, and on a clear day Muhabura and Gahinga stand over both. The roads and footpaths along their shores make a half-day outing from Musanze and a gentle day between treks.