Gorillas, December 27, 2023

 We woke up early to start our drive up to the Volcanoes National Park headquarters. When we arrived, we were greeted by the largest number of tourists we had seen up to that point. There were tons of people there to see both the mountain gorillas and the golden monkeys in the park. We were put in a group with a woman from South Korea who had been living in Rwanda teaching for 11 months and a guide named Jolly (Jol-EE). We then drove to the starting point, which was in a small village, where we met our porters. We started the hike straight up the volcano, up steep little paths passing through seemingly endless farmers' fields. Many people lived and farmed extremely far up the hill and lived what was nearly an hour's hike away from the closest road. It's gorgeous up at the top, with a view of the surrounding valley and the other volcanoes. The volcanoes are no longer active, but they do provide a distinct change from the rest of Rwanda's topography in that they have some real elevation, too, with a large valley at the base, different from the endless hills in the rest of the country. When we got to the edge of the park, we met one of our trackers sporting a massive AK-47. We entered the thick brush, hiking up steep, muddy hills for about another 45 minutes. When we arrived, we saw the many trackers and put on our masks to not give any of the gorillas any human sickness. The gorillas are incredible animals, so calm and relaxed, with all the people hanging out in such close proximity to them. They are not the tallest, but they are all very thick with muscle and hair. They are surprisingly cute animals up close. It was very enjoyable to spend some quality time with the monkeys. The rain picked up towards the end of our visit with the gorillas, and we had a muddy hike on the way out, slipping and sliding. We saw some of the most enormous worms we had ever seen, literally a foot long. We hiked back down the mountain and returned to the car where Jimmy was waiting for us. I spent the rest of the day napping and digesting the experience.