Rwanda - Wildlife
Mountain Gorillas - Mountain gorillas are the rarest of the three subspecies of gorillas. Tracking some of the 700 remaining mountain gorillas on your Rwanda holiday, through the forested slopes of Africa in the Virunga volcanoes is without doubt one of the absolute highlights of African travel if not global travel. Coming face to face with these amiable primates is both awe inspiring and scary. Accompanied by local guides you will not be able to help yourself but from respecting these magnificent creatures. Fearsome in appearance yet remarkably peaceable creatures almost everybody that visits the gorillas experiences the most spine-tingling wildlife experience possible. Looking into the soft brown eyes of these gentle giants is a life changing experience. In order to conserve the natural habitat and environment of gorillas, visitors are closely monitored and only a limited number of permits are available on each gorilla safari. In order to avoid disappointment it is advisable to book early.
Parc National des Volcans - PNV offers the chance to track one of seven families and has a total of 38 permits available daily. Gorilla tracking is slightly less challenging than in Uganda as hillsides are less steep however tracking can still take 3-10 hours. Depending on your fitness gorilla tracking can be at best testing and worst exhausting, bending and crawling through thick vegetation in the rainforest. Exhaustion however is soon a thing of the past when you come upon the gorillas in their natural habitat, and, your first sighting of a silverback gorilla in the wild, weighing three times the size of the average man, is a life changing encounter.
Golden Monkeys - Listed as an endangered species this is a rare treat for the visitor to be able to track both the mountain gorilla and the golden monkey in the same park (PNV)! Endemic to the Albertine Rift with its' bright golden body contrasting with its black limbs, visitors have the opportunity to track this small primate on days that they are not tracking the mountain gorilla.
Chimpanzees - Some of mankind's closest relatives the chimpanzees offer a completely different experience to that of tracking the mountain gorilla. Nyungwe Forest, one of the principal primate forests of Rwanda, has thirteen species of primate including the chimpanzee, the black and white colobus monkey and a variety of other monkeys. Even though there are an estimated 500-1000 chimpanzees in Nyungwe, sightings are still more down to chance than tracking abilities as the local authorities are still working to habituate the local troops. There has been more luck with the black and white colobus, with a group of up to 400 individuals being semi habituated and living nearby to the camp!
Dian Fossey's grave/Climbing the Virungas - Parc National des Volcans nowadays is not purely about gorilla safaris. Along with the golden monkey one can now climb a number of the Virunga peaks on one or two day climbs, or visit the remains of the Dian Fossey grave and the graves of some of the famous gorillas that she worked alongside.
