Rwanda -

In Januanuary 2011, I made my way to Rwanda after climbing Kilimanjaro. Rwanda is beautiful, The countryside is beautiful, and Rwandan women are beautiful. Rwanda is nothing I expected. Im slowely learning that the media we receive about african life and current events is a total misconception of what is really out there. ..But ill leave it at that. I just need to say, that East africa is an amazing place and east africans are some of the coolest and kindest people ive met when traveling.

So with that out of the way, Ill quickley describe a trek I did in the Jungle on the border of the DRC and Rwanda. When we took off at six in the morning, you meet in a single spot to receive your gorilla tracking permits. There, you group up with other travelers in your fitness range and you take off in search of the some of the few remaining mountain Gorilla of Volcanes National Park. A place made famous my Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist -

We started out hiking up the volcano walking through what seemed like an endless collection of african farm houses and Farmers tending to their fields. The children would chase after us laughing and calling me an "ageezy" meaning white man - ha

Then after a fewe hours, we came to the last farm, and there we faced the wall of a bamboo forrest. I also need to take a minute to say how much I hate bamboo. The only way to describe it, is that its like walking through a forrest where people are constantly punching you in the face and all over your body as you try to push through, and crawl under or around the stems of that horendous plant. Death to Bamboo.

So after the bamboo forrest, the Jungle became more abd more dense - Giant bushes of stinging nettel - the thickness of natural jungle made it so the only way to move forward was to chop with the machete - Two hours in, the jungle plantlife was so thick, that we stopped even touching the soil, and we were just walking on a raised layer of plantlife. All the while was hot and damp and uphill. I was exhausted and still quite sore from Kilimanjaro 4 days before, and this jungle was trying its hardest to push me back and spit me out -

Eventually we reached amazingly peaceful bowl shaped valley with calm wind and quiet with only the random bird making a noise - As we stopped to rest for a minute, I saw two black medium sized gorilla climbing the lush green walls of the valley. My jaw dropped. I was expecting to see a gorilla or two, but part of me, the cinic in me thought Id only get to see a gorilla for a split second as it ran away - not for a minute would I expect to see what I was about so witness.

As we climbed up after the two gorilla; up the almost vertical wall of plants, while the guide was haking away with his machete, I was in front - and at the top he stopped and pointed towards a bush that was to my left - There in a shadowy little hole, a giant Silverback Gorillas Ivory Black face was sniffing and staring right at me from about three feet away. My heart stopped and we just stared at eachother. Absolutly crazy.





We then walkked around the bush and saw that we were in a clearing, and there, layijng down and relaxing like lazy tired humans, were about 20 gorilla; the biggest, the silverback, the size of one of those smart cars. The smallest, a 1 year old baby. I froze. My heart stopped. They didnt do anything other than raise an eyebrow to check us out - The feeling of being there with these creatures in their own domain was nothing words can describe.

Suddenly, a huge female gorille that was sleeping a few feet away from me, sat up, rested her head on her arms in the most human way imaginable, and looked at me, right at me into my eyes and stared and I put my camera down and stared back - It was like she was touching my soul and I was speechless. That was the best moment -

Then, suddenly, another got up and ran super fast right at me and sat down next to me - THe guide said softly in a calm way "please slowley backup up sir" as if to say - "you are in danger sir, please move away calmly before you get your face ripped off." My heart was beating crazy fast and I slowley moved and started taking pictures of the baby that was jumping around and playing with the elders -




I ended up spending a little over an hour with the Susa Gorilla family, and it ended up being one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Rwanda