Rwanda
Bisoke

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    • Day 195

      Rwanda

      June 25, 2023 in Rwanda

      Onto Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, I spent a couple of days exploring the city which was the most developed city that I'd been in since South Africa. I visited the gut wrenching Kigali Genocide Memorial that teaches about the Tutsi genocide where over half a million people were murdered in 1994.

      Next I went to Kibuye on Lake Kivu where I enjoyed the quiet and natural beauty for a few days. I went on a boat trip to see the lake and visit some islands inhabited by monkeys and fruit bats. Then I moved onto Gisenyi on the northern shore of the lake, a town with a more lively scene where I celebrated my birthday with mojitos on the lake.

      Finally I made it to Volcanoes National Park in northern Rwanda for the main event, Mountain Gorilla trekking! We trekked into the jungle to see these magnificent creatures, it was so beautiful seeing them peacefully eating in their natural habitat, watching us as we watched them. The family we visited was the Amahoro family, which means peace in kinyarwanda, the local language. The family consisted of 2 silverbacks, and a range of gorillas of all ages down to young babies. We watched them in the clearing for a while then went to watch some of them climbing the trees. We're warned to keep a distance from the gorillas for their safety, but that can be difficult as they are clearly curious and wander past for a good look, even reaching out to touch at times. I felt extremely lucky to get to see them!
      I also went on a trek into a bamboo forest to see Golden Monkeys, a rare type of monkey found in central Africa which were also very interesting to see as they chomped away on the bamboo.
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    • Day 14

      Gorillas in the clear

      July 13, 2017 in Rwanda ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

      Mountain Gorilla Day!
      Up at the regular 5.45am for a 6.30am departure for the Ranger's station. Not as many people here today - the gorilla treks are always booked out (96 people per day), so there must be less on the monkey treks - so it didn't take long to get our allocated group. There are 12 habituated groups of gorillas, and only one group if trekkers visits each one, and we have been allocated the Umabano group, which is a family group of 15.

      The treks are designated as easy (up to 1 hour), medium (1-2 hours) or difficult (over 2 hours), but it's all dependent on where the gorillas move. Ours is usually a medium trek, and we've been fortunate to be allocated Francois as our guide - he's been working with gorillas for 36 years and was one of Diane Fossey''s guides, so he's fluent in gorilla and is a legend among the guides.

      It was a 45 minute drive to the start of the track, so we set off walking at 8.45am. The mountain gorillas roam all over the mountain, so we headed up and up, with the guides in radio contact with trackers who had gone up earlier to locate the group. It was a grueling walk, constantly uphill for almost 2 hours, with a number of stops to catch our breath. The altitude adds to the difficulty of the walk, and word came down that the family had been located at 2900m (as comparison, Mount Kosciuszko is 2,200m above sea level).

      About 100m from the group, the head tracker met us and we left our bags and porters and headed up with Francois. The first gorilla we spotted was the number 3 silverback of the group (unlike chimpanzees, gorillas have multiple silverbacks in a family group), who was pkaying with a younger male. We watched them for a while at close quarters, then went further uphill and saw both the head silverback and number 2. As we were moving uphill, a young male crossed the path between us and brushed against Oliver's leg with his hand!

      We spent over an hour observing the family playing, grooming and sleeping, then made our way down. The return journey was considerably quicker at 45 minutes.

      We returned to our lodge for late lunch, then went for a drive to the twin lakes, Burera and Ruhondo, and a sundowner at Virunga Lodge (the first lodge built after the genocide, to cater for gorilla tourism...but at $1600 a night, we won't be staying there anytime soon!)

      Returned for buffet tea and viewing of a gorilla DVD around the open fire before bed.
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