How do the trackers know where the gorillas are? Gorillas are basically very lazy. They go to sleep around 5:00pm and wake up around 8:00am in the morning. That’s when they start moving, eating for hours, take some naps, eat some more and go back to sleep. (Sounds like a good life to me.) There are trackers for each individual group that stay with them all day until the gorillas are fast asleep. Then, the tracker runs down the mountain, goes to sleep and runs back up the mountain before the gorillas wake up in the morning. He stays with them and in constant walkie-talkie range with the guides who then lead the groups directly to them.

There were different gorilla statistics posted back at Park Headquarters. The United States was #1, and Britain #2 in the amount of people who visited the gorillas in September, 2006. High season runs from May to October and low season, from January to April. However, you are on the equator and there is little variance in the temperature and amounts of rain. Our gorilla permits were $375 per person for a one-hour visit, increasing to $500 in 2007.

gorilla statistics at Volcanoes National Park headquarters, Rwanda
We followed the same routine the second day. Up early, drive to Park Headquarters, photo today in front of the Parc Volcans sign…with group…View image…and just us.

Volcanoes National Park Headquarters, Rwanda
Today, the seven of us plus one person from Holland were going to visit the Hirwa Group: one Silverback, his five wives, one blackback and three babies – approximately 1-1/2 months, 3 months and 4 months old. This made it even more exciting – lots of babies. The icing on the cake was Francois, who would be our guide again. Francois, age 47, was also head guide in the Park.

Hirwa Group family portrait, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda
Down a different decrepit road that ran by little villages, through more potato fields, past Eucalyptus trees. Francois fact: If a gorilla has a cough, they come into the fields to eat Eucalyptus leaves, a cough medicine for them. How intelligent and don’t you wonder how they discovered that. Over the lava wall with our usual armed guards in front-and-back, and a long but gradual up through the forest on even muddier trails than yesterday (if that was at all possible) due to rain throughout the night.

short rest stop going up through Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda
Two hours later, we dropped poles, packs and walked into a tree-covered, more enclosed area…our second group, the Hirwa gorillas.

A magnificent, imposing Silverback, head of the Hirwa clan…View image…

Silverback Hirwa patriach in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda
…he settled down and proceeded to work his way through one bamboo stalk after another, peeling and eating, with a big pile of discarded inedible bits in his lap…View image…

Silverback with his bamboo stalks in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda 

Margot and Blanche watching the Silverback Gorilla in Rwanda 

the pile bamboo discards were growing, Rwanda
… the rest of his family was walking in different directions, scattered within the trees…View image…View image….
Francois hacked away at the trees trying to give us a little more light for photographs but finally the entire family moseyed off in another direction…View image…