Golden Monkey trekking

Another 6.30am departure and drive to the ranger station for registration. This is where the gorilla and monkey treks leave from, so there was a car park full of 4WDs and around 200 people there. This is the cash cow of Rwandan tourism and the government recently doubled the price of the gorilla permits overnight, from $750 to $1500... and there's talk they will double it again to $3000 to reduce demand whilst maintaining income. Hopefully they won't kill the goose that laid the golden egg...

We're doing the Golden Monkey trek today, an easy 45 minute walk, firstly through the potato plantations, then into a bamboo forest. There are 120 monkeys in the family, and it didn't take long to spot them. Golden Monkeys are endangered and only found in the volcanic mountains in this area. They live in the mid region of the forest away from their two main predators - eagles at the top of the trees and wild dogs on the ground. They feed quickly and store the food in cheek pouches for later digestion, so look very cute with their chubby cheeks!

We returned to the lodge for lunch, then headed into Musanze for some shopping at the local market. At 4pm we visited the Dianne Fossey Gorilla Fund Museum for a guided tour, and paid an impromptu visit into Team Rwanda cycling team headquarters on the way back. We spotted their sign on the way into Musanze, but the gate was closed when we got back - it didn't stop Aloys who soon had us inside, and got a tour of their facility! Unfortunately they didn't have any merchandise to sell 😕

When we arrived back at the lodge there was a local dance troupe waiting to perform for us. It was an energetic performance, including some crowd participation (not only can we not jump, turns out we can't dance either!)

Dinner was a buffet in the lodge restaurant, early bed at 9.30pmLæs mere