LordNigel's Travels - Animals of Rwanda

Hi everyone,

I'm so excited about how much people are liking my travel posts, so I will keep at it (& hope I don't disappoint)

This time I would like to post about my visit to see the Mountain Gorillas that live in the Volcanoes National park; and no trip to Rwanda is complete without exploring the wild jungles in search for Chimpanzee (in the Nyungwe Forest National Park). 

So far I have posted the following LordNigel's Travels:

LordNigel's Travels - Animals of Madagascar
LordNigel's Travels - Animals of Rinca Island

LordNigel's Travels - Animals of South Africa

Today,  I dedicated this post to the animals of Rwanda :)

This is a photo of a little Mountain Gorilla taken up close (about 1 meter away from my camera).so00 cute! this little guy is one of approx 880 left on the planet. This species is severely endangered (I don't believe you will find any in zoo's! there are only a couple of places on earth to come see them in the wild)

These guys like to hang out among the ferns and stinging nettles (ouch! it is not that pleasant climbing in to sit with them, but still very much worth it!).

When we first arrived, we were challenged by the Silverback (the large male leader). Our local guide was seen as our group leader (Dominant male). To allow us to be accepted as friends by the family, he had to submit. The guide did this by bowing his head and making whimpering submissive sounds, advising us to keep back and keep our heads bowed, and our eyes down.

The Silverback recognized him and accepted this submission, gently pushing him around a bit to ensure he knew who was boss. With no anger shown by our guide, I assume we were seen as non threatening and accepted as honorary members/guests of the Gorilla group.

They live and play together as families and sometimes adopt others into their families.  At this point I was part of the group and feeling much safer (the Silverback was huge)

Mostly they hangout all day and pick stuff out of each others hair (fascinating to watch, reminds me of myself on a lazy Sunday - but I'm still not sure how they handle those stinging nettles)

The young ones love to wrestle and climb around, basically just playing. At one stage an inquisitive young one came up to me. I did as I was trained and made a sound "ooouuh, oooouh,oooo" in a deep voice. This worked and the young one backed off, the "ooouh" sound basically says I am grumpy don't come near (We don't want them getting to close to humans as we might carry disease or the parents may become concerned).

The adults tend to just kick back and sleep while the kids are hard at it, practicing their chest pounding, rolling about and holding their little feet.

What a fantastic day, we were all smiles for the tough hike back (You can see the mountains where they live in the background).

Leaving the Mountain Gorilla's behind we travel to Nyungwe Forest National park, home to many other animals such as this curious L'Hoests Monkey who dropped by to say hello (look at his white beard :))

Here the forests are dense and wet. I have ventured into rain forest before, but nothing as near impenetrable as this. Here with my local guides and machete in hand, we cut our way into the deep forest in search of wild Chimpanzee (according to some scientists these guys share more then 98% of  the same DNA as humans.)

After several hours of climbing hills, getting stuck in bog, getting scratched and being attacked by ants I finally held my head down in failure exhausted. This was by far the hardest thing I have had to do in my life (at one point I thought I was going to have a heart attack).

The guides suddenly got excited, jumping, pointing and indicating for me to look up (English was not their first language)

 

No lie sitting quietly in the tree not far above was a wild Chimp!!

These guys have got seriously long arms and move effortlessly through the forest, they are much bigger then you think they would be.

At one point this guy slid down the tree (they spin as they come down like a fireman down a pole) and stood upright directly in front of me. Our eyes connected and it was like looking into a humans eyes. This was a moment I will never forget.

This concludes this episode of LordNigel's Travels

For now I will keep with the animal theme, but in a few posts time I might mix it up and introduce you to some of the people of these places as well! However, I do take requests, you never know I may have been there.  I can also provide more photo's on any place already posted (I have 100's of photo's). I like interaction! so please let me know.

All the best  

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