It was in December last year when we thought of traveling to Africa, but the problem was where to go for a fantastic and memorable jungle safari. We checked on internet for different interesting safari destinations in Africa and most travel websites where recommending big five watching in South Africa. There were also different destinations like wildlife watching in Masai Mara Kenya, pyramid visit in Egypt, wildlife and chimpanzee tracking in Uganda among others. As we were about to go with Big Five Tour in South Africa, we landed on a website; www.gorillatrips.com with cheap gorilla safari packages to Rwanda and decided to contact them. We talked about prices, number of days, number of people, different accommodation and their prices and among other important information we needed to know before traveling to Rwanda.
We concluded on taking a 3 day gorilla safari Rwanda and Mukasa Mathias who handled and organized our trip was so knowledgeable and provided us with all the information we need, he advised us on the high demand of the gorilla permits and requested us to at least book them 3 months before we travel.
We handled them all the responsibilities to organize everything for us and our job was only to fly to Rwanda to enjoy the trip.
On our first day we landed at Kigali international Airport on 15th/April/2016 and our safari guide was ready to transfer us to Kigali the capital of Rwanda. This city is decollated with many hills and is a very organized and even one of the most clean and organized cities in Africa. We just continued for breakfast at Kigali Serena Hotel and then head for a city tour where we got a great opportunity to see the remains of the 1994 genocide in different genocide memorial museums. After at around midday, we returned to the hotel for lunch and then we drove towards the northeaster direction to Volcanoes National park at the boarder with Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We had dinner and over night and Mountain Gorilla View Lodge this was an eco lodge found in Musanze district and is about only 15 minutes drive from the main entrance of Volcanoes National Park.
The second day of our trip was the most amazing and memorable, the day we entered the think jungle to track mountain gorillas. Every early in the morning we had breakfast and the transferred to the national park headquarters with our packed lunch and tracking gears because the time to take while tracking gorillas is unpredictable. After a short briefing from the ranger guide we entered the forest to start the search for the great apes. Our guide told us that mountain gorillas are huge apes about three times the weight of an average man and they live in the thick forests of Virunga Volcanoes covering countries like; Rwanda the Volcanoes national park, Democratic Republic of Congo the Virunga National Park and Uganda’s Mgahinga Gorilla Park. Another population of mountain gorillas is found in Bwindi Impenetrable National park in the southwestern part of Uganda.
As we were moving in the forest we come across different wildlife like many bird species and our guide told us the forest if home to over 178 bird species, we found different primates like golden monkeys and many other wild animals in the forest.
We moved in the jungle for 4 hours before we reached where the gorillas spent the last night and guide told us we are about to see them. In moved more 15 minutes and we found these animals playing and doing the daily work when they sow us they didn’t feel bothered because they are habituated and they just continued with what they where doing. It is very interesting to know that you are in touch with the only left over mountain gorillas in the world. We spent a full hour with them and surely there is nothing interesting and exciting like spending time with these animals. After we returned to the lodge for late lunch and relaxation as we waited for dinner and overnight.
This third day we reserved it for departure, every early in the morning after breakfast we packed up and hit the road back to Kigila for a last minute shopping and then we transferred to Kigali International Airport for our departure flight.