We met with Flohan, Xavier and Aaron for breakfast. The meal wouldn’t have won any culinary awards – white toast, blue ban (African margerine that doesn’t need to be refrigerated), pineapple, coffee & bananas. We’d figured breakfast would be bad considering the noxious fish from the night before and it lived up to expectations.
Maggie and I realized we didn’t have any food to eat on our 4-hour trek up the mountain so I grabbed a row of mini bananas and we set off.
Normally you need to hire a driver for $80 to go to National Park Des Volcanoes but Maggie and I were fortunate that Flohan and Xavier said we could jump in their van. Hurray!
We got to the park and were told that in addition to us four we’d have Bernard – a spindly 6’4’’ Belgium expatriate with wire-rimmed glasses and a close cropped hair cut. He lived in Kaniji in the early 1980’s studying gorillas with Diane Fossey. Diane Fossey lived on Mount Bisoke for 15 years studying gorillas. In 1985 she was killed by poachers whom she clashed with often. The movie “Gorillas in the Mist” was about her studies, life and death.
Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey
Overview
Gorillas in the Mist is a 1988 film which tells the true-life story of naturalist Dian Fossey and her work in Rwanda with Mountain Gorillas. The screenplay was adapted by Anna Hamilton Phelan from articles by Alex Shoumatoff and Harold T. P. Hayes and a story by Phelan and Tab Murphy. The original music score was composed by Maurice Jarre. The movie was directed by Michael Apted and the cinematography was by John Seale.
The movie stars Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, Julie Harris and John Omirah Miluwi. It was nominated for five Academy Awards - Best Actress in a Leading Role (Sigourney Weaver), Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Score and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - and won the Golden Globe Awards for Weaver's performance and Jarre's score while being nominated for Best Picture.
Plot summary
A Kentucky woman, Dian Fossey, is inspired by an anthropologist Louis Leakey to devote her life to the study of primates. Travelling into deepest Africa, Fossey becomes fascinated with the lives and habits of the rare mountain gorillas of the Rwandan jungle. She becomes so preoccupied with her vocation that she loses the opportunity of a romance with National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell.
Appalled by the poaching of the gorillas for their skins, hands, and heads, Fossey complains to the Rwandan government, which dismisses her, claiming that poaching is the only means by which some of the Rwandan natives can themselves survive. She rejects this, and dedicates herself to saving the African Mountain gorilla from illegal poaching and likely extinction. To this end she forms and leads numerous anti-poaching patrols, and even burns down the poachers' villages and stages a mock execution of one of the offenders. Fossey is mysteriously murdered on December 26, 1985, in the bedroom of her cabin.
Its really crazy - I remember watching that movie as a kid and wondering what it would be like to live in the heart of Africa...and now, perhaps by chance, perhaps by fate I was there.
Anyways...it was pretty cool to have Bernard in our group. He had moved back to Rwanda only 6 months ago.
“How are you getting there and back?” Bernard asked.
“Well, we have a ride there but we don’t know how we’re getting back.” I said. Flohan and Xavier’s driver was heading back to Kampala after dropping us off at the base of Bisoke.
His eyes smiled. “Don’t you think that’s a little optimistic?”
I nodded.
He pointed at his vehicle a bad-a$$ Land Cruiser with an elevated intake valve, 4-wheel drive and tires the size of a 18 wheelers.
“Today is your lucky day.” He said. “I can drive you there and back.”
Apparently Flohan, Xavier, Maggie and my plan to “figure it out” was a bad idea. Most days there are only a few people climbing the Bisoke volcano and without a ride back you’d be in a sticky situation.
We drove to Bisoke on some of the worst roads I’ve ever driven on – and believe me – that’s saying a lot. We needed every one of our 4 wheels to make it to the base camp.
We started our ascent and were moving very fast. I run every day, but Rwanda is more than a THREE MILES high just at the BASE of the mountain. The air is thin. It made me nervous because the guide and porter are used to the thin air, Maggie is from “mile-high” Denver and even Flohan and Xavier come from high altitudes in Switzerland. I was the only one without high-altitude lungs. Before we entered the base camp I was sweating profusely and winded.
We began our ascent and initially I tried to avoid the puddles and water (little did I know what awaited). We continued climbing.
We reached the site where Dian Fossey lived with the gorilla’s and had been slaughtered. We turned upwards and hadn’t gone far when the guide put his hand up and told us to stay still. We’d run into a pack of mountain Buffalo which have terrible sight, are dumb and are the most dangerous animals on the mountain on account of their size and proclivity to charge. Flohan and Xavier told us when they had gone mountain tracking the day before the guides brought guns – not to protect against gorillas or poachers but in the event they ran into mountain buffaloes.
“You are lucky to see mountain Buffalo.” Our guide Fidel told us.
“I want to see mountain gorillas!” I said.
He smiled. “You need to pay to see the gorillas – go gorilla tracking.”
Okay. It’s a weird thing here. People have to pay an obscene amount of money ($600) to see the gorillas. Let me put that in perspective for you. The average per capita income for Rwandans is $370. The average per capita income in the United States is $22,000. So it would be like people coming to the United States and paying $40,000 to watch some gorillas pad around in the jungle.
Why am I highlighting this?
Its because the gorilla tracking brings in SO much money that the tour guides and the national park are VERY strict about who can see them. They don’t want tourists who pay $150 to climb Bisoke to see gorillas when the going rate is $600.
When the Democratic Republic of Congo gorilla fighters (which were within miles of where we were trekking) want to inflict economic punishment on Rwanda the plan is VERY simple.
Kill a group of gorilla toursists and you dessicate an entire industry for 12 months. There was a group of gorilla tourists killed in 1998 and it ravaged the industry.
Sorry – I digressed – anyways, the $600 was too much for Maggie to pay and I didn’t want to do it by myself…so gorilla tracking wasn’t in our itinerary – BUT – I did mention to her that I was upset because we were in the last place on earth that mountain gorilla’s live, and there are only 700 left, and we weren’t going to see them.
We continued hiking. I called up to Bernard, “Hey, what are our chances for seeing mountain gorillas today?”
“One or two percent.” He said.
My hopes were getting smaller and smaller. Sigh.
The rest of the hike was super intense. It was probably the hardest exercise I’ve ever done in my life – no exxageration – 4 hours of hiking up steep slopes through thick bush and deep mud that was sometimes 8-12 inches deep (if you don’t believe me about the depths of the mud check out the pictures from day 3 of my trip).
We reached the top, but it was unfortunately covered in a cloud. We couldn’t see any of the outlying landscape and we could barely make out the crater lake in the middle of the volcano.
Suddenly the fog lifted and I was able to snap some pictures of the lake. We hung out for a half hour rehydrating, resting our legs and sharing the mini bananas I’d taken from breakfast. We each got ONE mini banana (which is the size of a plump thumb). Not a hearty lunch after rigorous exercise…again poor planning on our part – most trekkers bring lunch.
The walk down was even harder than the walk up because we were still trying to avoid the holes and the mud and the roots and now we had gravity pulling us down.
“How many people break their ankles coming down this mountain?” I asked Fidel.
“Not many.”
Yeah right – it was a perfect storm to snap an ankle.
Xavier had badly broken his ankle a year ago and he was down right mad at the conditions. “This is f**king insane! They should have told us it was going to be this treacherous! I don’t want to break my ankle again.” He yelled.
We continued our descent. All the sudden Fidel raised his hand and turned around.
“STOP!!!” He hissed. “Don’t move.”
He flapped his arms admonishing us to get down and to keep quiet.
“What is it Fidel?” I whispered. I thought it was another herd of mountain buffalo.
“Come together in a close group.” He hissed. “The gorillas are sorrounding us.”
WWWHHHAAATTTTTTTTTT?!?!?!?
I kid you not – I trudged down another couple of feet and literally within arms reach sat a 600-pound silverback mountain gorilla. If I walked a little closer I could have touched it.
“Keep moving!” Fidel hissed. “Stay close together!”
I gazed at the gorilla few seconds more, knowing this opportunity would never happen again. Literally, like the movie “Gorilla’s in the Mist” I was looking at a gorilla in the mist on top of a volcano on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This doesn’t happen often. This doesn’t usually happen in a lifetime.
I didn’t know what the big deal was with seeing the gorillas – but after seeing one so close I know the $600 people pay is worth it. They are so massive and powerful and beautiful and stark and serene animals. The animal could have torn me limb from limb (and if it were the movies, where they are depicted that way, I’m sure that would have happened) but it sat there just staring at me quietly.
Fidel hissed at us again. “Stay together! They are still all around us!”
I looked one last time and then started walking down. When BAM another gorilla just off the path! I looked at him but Fidel was adamate we continue moving.
Then another MASSIVE gorilla on the left side into the distance. It saw us and ran into the bush – the signature silverback disappearing into the thick underbrush. Then ANOTHER gorilla eating bamboo or sugarcane or something on the right side.
Then from the left where the massive silverback had been I heard a blood-curdling, guttural screech.
“We are in the middle of a family!” Fidel yelled under his breath.
Another screech.
Bernard looked at me. “The gorillas are telling us to move.”
I didn’t need any more prompting. I looked back at Flohan and Xavier who were taking pictures of the first gorilla.
Fidel yelled at them. “Come here now!”
Flohan and Xavier slid down the mountain.
Fidel walked up to them. “Did you two take pictures of the gorillas?!”
Flohan and Xavier didn’t respond.
“You did. I know it.” Fidel yelled. “Take out your camera and delete the pictures right now.”
Wow – Fidel turned from a warm and bubbly guide to disciplinarian real quick.
Like I said before – they are super strict with this stuff – they didn’t want us going back to our lodge and telling people we saw gorillas and then showing them pictures they themselves paid $600 for. Seeing those gorillas was a complete anomaly – we just got lucky.
We came back to Bernard’s car so tired we could barely walk. We got back to the Kiniji lodge and Flohan, Xavier, Maggie and I got lunch. Then Flohan and Xavier made their way to Kigali and Maggie and I went to our rooms and read and slept.
I woke up at 9:30 after sleeping a few hours and scribbled the notes for this journal entry on a piece of paper (of which I’ve only now transcribed to my blog), had a well deserved beer and read.
The mental snapshot of the mist and the gorillas is something that will stay with me always. It was one of the more magical experiences of my life.
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