Monkeying around in Volcanoes National Park

I love jokes but can never remember the punch line.  One of the few jokes that I’ve always remembered is one on a lollypop stick from when I was little: Where does a monkey cook his toast?  A. Under a gorilla!  
Well yes, perhaps it is a lame joke, but it seems like fate that I would one day meet a gorilla, and when I did, it was awesome!

The 3 hour hike in the Volcanoes National Park to find the gorillas was an adventure in itself; it is the rainy season at the moment, and we had to wade through thick mud.  At the start of the hike, I naively tried not to get too dirty but soon realised this was a pointless feat so just enjoyed the squelching and squishing.  As well as the mud, there were 6 ft stinging nettles (a key part of the gorillas’ diet), and as we ventured deeper and deeper into the bush, our guide had to use a machete to hack through the dense vegetation.  The excitement of the gorillas meant I didn’t think that much of it at the time, only realising after the adrenalin had worn off how stung my legs had got through my trousers.

We spent an hour watching the Amahoro group with great fascination.  Amahoro means peace in Kinyarwanda.  Before people are able to go and visit a group of gorillas, the group has to be habitualised to humans.  The Amahoro group is so named because it took a surprisingly short amount of time for the silver backs to get used to people.  Now, it just takes a deep “haaaaaaummmmm” sound from time to time to remind the gorillas that their human visitors are friendly and they go about their business of eating leaves, tidying their nests, etc, as if you aren’t even there.

There were 2 babies in the group, a tiny one month old who just clung to its mother and slept, and a very playful 4 month old, who swung from trees and generally performed for the audience until its mother grunted and it retreated back to the nest for a cuddle.

The Amahoro group is unusual in having 3 silver back males.  We were stood watching the 2^nd in command when he turned and decided he wanted to be exactly where we were standing.  We rushed to move out of the way, but he was quick and so passed by us very closely.  Ever the cool, calm naturalist, I clung onto a friend and tried not to look the gorilla in the eye.  Our guide just looked on and chuckled.  But he was HUGE...