GORILLAS!!!

So many of you know that we went to see the gorillas yesterday. Well you may not know that we went yesterday but you knew we were going. Well we did and it was AMAZING!!!

We had to get up really early 5:00am and meet for an orientation and meet our group and figure out which group of gorillas we were seeing. We were told we were going to see the Amahoro group which means Peace group. We thought that was extremely fitting considering we are here in Rwanda working for a peace building organization, during the hour and a half bus ride to Ruhengeri (the town near the gorillas) the bus driver was blasting Bob Marley and well Steph is a big hippie who loves Peace and peace signs and white doves and all that stuff.

So we met our guide, met the other people in our group, got our orientation and got in our trucks to drive to the mountain. About an hour drive on some of the most BUMPY!!! roads ever we finally got to the base of the mountain. We were told it would take us about an hour and a half hike up the mountain to get to where the gorillas were. Now that we got our walking sticks our armed guards (2 men from the army armed with AK-47s for our protection, if an animal attacks us they shoot in the air to scare it off), our guide and a porter, we set off for the gorillas.

The hike was quite fun and GORGEOUS! So green and amazing on the mountain. We were literally walking through the forest on the side of this mountain. In some spots the porter in the front had to hack us a new path with a machete or we just walked through brush.

Before we started walking, Olivier, our guide, warned us about thorns and "stinging nettles". He said that the stinging nettle is not poisonous but will burn if you touch it. He said we could try and test it out but he didn't suggest it. Well with ripstop pants, and a long sleeve jacket or in steph's case bunches of layers and a long sleeve shirt, we thought we would be OK. HA we were VERY wrong. There were some parts that we walked through that the stinging was unavoidable. It went straight through our clothes and all you would hear is ooo oww, ouch, it burns from everyone in the group.

Well through all the burning, slipping and falling etc. we finally made it to the point where we had to ditch all our stuff and just take our cameras with us to go see the gorillas. During the orientation they told us we had to maintain a 7 meter distance from all the gorillas. Immediately we were all thinking damn that sucks, you can get closer to gorillas in the Bronx Zoo. The first gorilla we saw was about 7-10 meters away. And we could barely see him just a little bit of his back and head. It was so cool to see one finally but I kept thinking, I wonder if this is how far they will be from us the whole time, cuz that would suck.

Well we kept walking and a few minutes later, we saw a big gorilla about 10 feet away and looking right at us. She kept bending over and looked like she was eating something. All of a sudden she repositions and we see that she is holding a 2 week old baby gorilla in her arms. She was cleaning him and breastfeeding. She looked like a human mother cradling her baby. It was SOOOO Cute. The little baby was all fuzzy and his eyes were all squinty since he was so new he couldn't really open them fully yet. After a while of us staring at her and the baby she got bored and threw the baby on her back and walked away.

Then we saw two young gorillas about a few years old each playing. They looked like boys ruff housing back home. They were kicking and pushing each other, nibbling, giving noogies, one of them looked like he was being tickled because he was kind of laughing. Then they just started to roll around, doing somersaults down through the brush.

The guide told us to look somewhere else and there was the big silver back. 30 years old and HUGE. He is the dominant male of the group and we could definitely see why. Earlier the guide explained to us that with gorillas, only the dominant male gets to mate with the females. All the other males of the group, even if they are silver backs old and big, they can not mate until the dominant male dies or becomes too old. If they get impatient they can leave and start their own group. Sometimes if the dominant male is away, the females will cheat on him with the other males of the group. But they know they can't get caught.

So we are watching this big silver back and he is just sitting there chomping away at some celery like plant. All we could see at first was his big head. After a few minutes he stood up to get some more food and needless to say he was large. After a while, he got up and started to walk over towards us. We all got a little scared and were wondering what was going to happen. He slowly walked by us and walked into a different part of the bush. That was definitely a scary moment for everyone, we all wanted to move away from the gorilla but didn't want to startle it either. The guide started to grunt, just communicating to him that we were not a threat...or so he thinks that is what he is saying, who knows.

We walked to find some more and we came across a juvenile, about the size of a 3-4 year old human. SO CUTE. He was just eating a little bamboo/celery and watching us, probably wondering what we are. He got up and started to walk towards us a little and the guide started to grunt. Whenever he did that the kid gorilla would just look at him with bewildering eyes and then go about his business. While the baby isn't necessarily threatening, the guide didn't want him to come any closer to us because sometimes the mother or the big silver back will take it as we are trying to steal or hurt the baby and they will get VERY protective and VERY aggressive. Luckily that didn't happen because if it did, we probably wouldn't have made it out of there.

There are more stories of really cute gorillas but that will have to wait till we can talk in person and we can show you pics.

But for now here are some pictures to get you by...These are rough pictures that just came from our cameras. When I get home and have the ability to play with the pictures, touch them up a little in photoshop, I'll be sure to send out the good copies as well.