20
JULY 2005 ‚ 2035 HOURS ‚ VIRUNGA LODGE, RWANDA
Before I forget there are a few identifiers and terms I need to get down before
I get started recounting the day. The lakes that make up the view from our banda
at the lodge are Ruhondo on the left and Bulera (also known as Burera) on the
right. Together they are called the Twin Lakes. The former is the one we can
see from the patio of our banda.
Gacaca (pronouncd Gah-cha-ka).
These are the community tribunals that take place and dispense justice
to those accused of participating in the genocide. We saw a gathering
of people on our way back to park headquarters from the gorillas and
learned it was a gacaca waiting to get started.
Agachupa (aógah-chu-pah) means water bottle. The children on the roadsides
we travel to and from the lodge and the national park run to greet the vehicle
to beg for water bottles, by holding their hands out palms up and yelling agachupa!
Not moneyÖ mostly. Just water bottles was for what they longed.
I'm not sure abject poverty
describes the rung on the socio-economic ladder that the locals around
the Virnuga Mountains occupy. I think abject poverty would be a step
up from the quality of life they lead. They apparently own their own
homes but farm on government-owned land. The highest technology I've
seen are the transistor radios in the hands of many of the young adult
men we pass. They tend and till the small plots of soil they manage
entirely by hand and grow potatoes or cabbage or banana. Both yesterday
and this morning after leaving park headquarters, we witnessed a sawing
operation that consisted of a large tree trunk elevated by two braces.
Standing upon it was a single man with an elongated saw blade. Yesterday
when we passed him around 8 a.m., he had just started on a new tree
trunk. Three-and-a-half hours later when we'd finished our trekking
and were heading back to HQ, he was perhaps three-quarters done. Many
own bicycles, 
which
have carriers on the rear with padded seats to transport a friend or
loved one. They are alternately used to transport
huge quantities of cargo, such as wood and four or five 40-liter water
jugs, or monstrous sacks of potatoes or rice. Laden with their load,
the bikes are unrideable and the owners have to resort to pushing them
awkwardkly and dangerously up and down long hills. There is no phone.
No electricity. No plumbing in any of the private dwellings. The most
popular toy I've seen children playing with is what looks to be an
old bicycle rim that they push along the road with two sticks bound
together to form a V. There are no balls other than ones they might
make from tied-together plastic bags. No dolls. No board games. And
the houses are ramshackle at best made
of bricks formed of the dried earth beneath their feet, they are mostly crumbling
affairs in various states of disrepair.
It is sad to see, but I get
the sense there's happiness in their simple lives. Just now, under
the light of the full moon that has peeked through the cloud layer
I heard a gathering singing loudly and proudly ‚ their voices carried
from some distance away to my ears. I very much envy those people.
As difficult and arduous their lives may be that doesn't stop from
from getting together and having a good time.
But on to the matter at hand:
Gorilla trekking, part two. Again with the 5 a.m. wake up call. Again
with the daybreak breakfast. Again with the 6 a.m. departure and the
long, winding and bumpy roads to the HQ of the Parc Nacional des Volcans.
Figuratively we had two choices. Go with the Suso group, which suffers
a long and very steep climb to arrive at the 37-member group of mountain
gorillas, the largest group available for viewing by tourists. Or go
with the 13 Group, which Susan and I had been told that yesterday's
13 Group got back about 90 minutes ahead of us trekking the Sabyinyo
Group. Part of me wanted to be a part of the Susa trek, but the other
part of me wanting a chance to get back early and explore the grounds
around the lodge. Susan felt the same way, so when we arrived at the
park headquarters we told our driver Francis that we wanted the quicker
trek, and that was the 13 Group, not named because of the number of
gorillas (which coincidentally is 13), but rather named by Dian Fossey
when she had begun studying them. The other groups, such as Susa and
Sabyinyo have since been renamed from the original number designation
Fossey had bestowed upon them, but 13 Group has stayed the same for
some unknown reason.
Our guides would be the jovial
and youthful Daniel and the more serious and matured Francois. Joining
us were dad and daughter Reg and Rebecca, an Italian girl named Christine
and an Australian named Rachel traveling with a friend whose name I
can't recall. From the outset, both Susan and I were very short of
breath, a fact compounded by the speed at which Daniel led us. Arriving
at the park boundary Daniel told us that it was probably two more hours
of hiking to get to the gorillas.
What? I looked at Susan and told her I hoped he was exaggerating for dramatic effect, because if he wasn't there was no way this trek was going to be quicker and easier than yesterday's. He wasn't exaggerating. Where I felt we cheated a bit with the ease of yesterday's short climb to the Sabyinyo Group, we certainly earned today's viewing with a much longer and higher climb that left Susan almost entirely spent and me doing my best to keep her going. And boy did she keep going, thanks in part to guide Francois, who took the lead from Daniel and even graciously carried her pack the rest of the way.
And it was a long way along
a narrow muddy trail full of tripper vines that would catch your feet
and threaten to topple
you forward. And choker vines
at about neck or forehead level that seemed that seemed to exist just to
clothesline you. And if you paid too much attention to one, the other
kind got you. There
was little else to call this journey other than tiring, difficult and painful.
Whereas yesterday's Sabyinyo
Group of 11 gorillas was situated at 8,600 feet of mostly smooth-going
trail. 13 Group was much higher at 9,100 hard-fought feet.
9,116 to be exact.
The rest of the people in our
group was wonderful as well, letting her know that Susan's slower pace
was not a problem at all, and ultimately it all became worth it when
we came to a clearing and found Agashya the chief silverback (and sole
male of the group, resting on his elbows next to a female who was grooming
her infant. The baby then broke free of her mother's clutches and proceeded
to decorate himself from, of all things, a giant pile of gorilla feces,
while the big silverback looked on. I'm not kidding he rubbed it on
his muzzle, put it in his mouth, draped it over his arm. Yuck to us
but
fun for
it.
Eventually when they moved on,
granting us access to other areas where the rest of the group was gathered,
we witnessed three females in a row with the female in back grooming
the one in front of her and the one in front being groomed by the gorilla
in the middle.
We also watched another somewhat rambunctious female retire with a wild banana
for a snack after charging across the space between her and us. She also engaged
in some brief chest thumping before tackling and playfully wrestling the gorilla
nearest her.
They too soon moved away from us and we followed to find a young female climbing
up some bamboo stalks to the tree canopy for some food. And around a bend in
the foliage, there was Agashya, the magnificent 
silverback, once again sitting
and snacking. I moved across our group to get a position next to Susan and
started taking all sorts of pictures, surprised to find a mother and baby stationed
in some deep ground cover having a nibble. One of the highpoints came when
the silverback, less than 10 feet from me crossed over to bend down a tall
bamboo stalk from which to get the tendeest shoots, and the mother and her
baby then confidently passed by Susan and I close enough to reach out and touchÖ and
I captured it all on videotape.
After the silverback headed
out, we made our way across when he suddenly bolted, breaking a strong
bamboo stalk with a loud crack as he went. An amazing display of strength
and power. In his wake
he left the large broup we had previously seen resting and grooming.
Not too interested in us, they made they're way up and over a tall
embankment to rejoin their leader, and up and over we went, too.
With our hour drawing to a close, we were spending our last few minutes admiring
the grand silverback, when one of the infants came walking defiantly right
towards us to show us who was really the boss. Staring us down for a bit, he
stood a little unsteadily on all fours and gazed out at us before turning his
back, thrashing a small branch that lay next to him and moving off back into
the heart of the group. With our time up, the reality set in: what goes up
must come down. And Susan and I stealed ourselves for what was sure to be as
difficult a journey out of the forest as the one in had been.
I almost got impaled on a macheted
piece of bamboo that jutted out into the path, and had my fair share
of nettles nipping at my legs and knees. It was a relief when we finally
made it to the volcanic rock wall of the park's boundary, but it was
still another trek across the farmed fields down to where Francis awaited
us in the vehicle.
So much for getting back early
and exploring the grounds of the lodge. We got back about 4 p.m. and
showered and rested and had dinner with a lodge guest who'd just arrived
that night and was to go trekking gorillas the next two days. The dinner
was marvelous and the dessert was an awesome surprise, a marriage cake
presented by the entire lodge staff who sung "Happy Marriage" to the
tune of "Happy Birthday." A wonderful way to close the day.
Tomorrow we'll be back in Kigali by 10 a.m. and have a flight back to Kenya
at scheduled to arrive in Nairobi at 4 p.m. I will miss Rwanda and the gorillas,
but we do have so much more to look forward to.