In 2004, my wife and I went to Africa with two other couples for what we call “a trip of a lifetime.”  I was celebrating retiring from business and we visited five countries, my first time in Africa.  I was hooked.  Our trip was organized for us by Africa Safari, located in California (www.africasafari.com).

We flew from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Kigali, the capital in Rwanda.  We spent a night in Kigali at the Hôtel des Mille Collines, originally famous as Dian Fossey’s home base and later made famous by the movie Hotel Rwanda.  It was an interesting night with open windows, strange sounds and the excitement of being in Africa for the first time.

The gorillas live among five volcanic peaks called the Virunga Mountains.  The countries of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo intersect in the mountains.  Here is an image from our lodge the first night.  You really get the feeling of “Gorillas in the Mist”.  There are reported to be fewer than 1,000 mountain gorillas remaining, and none in captivity.  Our group was impressed with the apparent concern over preserving these wonderful animals.  Subsequent news from the area hasn’t been as happy as the biggest threat continues to be human encroachment of the gorillas natural habitat.

We got up very early to meet our guide from Vocaones Safaris (www.volcanoesafaris.com) and drove to the national park headquarters.  Here we met our guides.  It is interesting to note that there are four habituated gorilla families that are visited each day.  At the time, they only issue 8 permits per group for a total of 32 people per day.   I believe there are now 7 gorilla families and 56 permits issued per day.

From the park it was back to the vehicles for a short drive to the base of the mountain in which our assigned family was being tracked.  There are full time trackers in touch with the guides by radio who locate and follow the gorillas.  Once there, we pile out of the vehicles and pick up porters to help carry the gear on our trek.  I highly recommend the porters.  I think we paid them $10 per day, so they are inexpensive, but it is a lot of money to them.  And, the trek is strenuous enough.  On the first day we had to hike in the rain forest for 2 1/2 hours to get to our assigned family.

Hiking up – loose soil, lots of vines and 30-40 degrees of slope make for a strenuous trek.  There are a lot of vines and stinging nettles so, as you can see, we cover up pretty well.

Once we are close to the gorillas, we leave the porters and hike the last distance with the guides.  My memory of the first gorilla was a black ball of fur that just appeared before us.  You are very quiet as you are invading their space.  The rule was you could get within 20 feet but they could get as close as they wished.  There is concern over transmitting disease in both directions.

The Gorillas

Each gorilla family unit is headed by a dominant male, called a Silverback.

We visited two different families on the two days we had permits.

The Silverbacks were very serious.

The babies were cute and playful.

We saw a lot of different gorillas but this family was very photogenic.

The Photography

I went with my brand new Canon 1d mark II and used  70-200 and 24-70 Canon lenses.  You get pretty close and I think 90% of my images were taken with the 70-200.

The setting is dark subjects in a dark green background with unpredictable light.  We were lucky in that it wasn’t raining and we had pretty good light filtering through the forest canopy.

Be prepared to shoot from awkward positions, sometimes standing on a slope covered with a foot of vines, which are “bouncy.”

Rwanda is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited with red soil, green foliage and mountains.  The people were very friendly and we were very impressed with the level of service.  We stayed two nights at the Virunga Lodge an eco-lodge owned by Volcanoes Safaris.  There was no electricity at the lodge but our group all rated the experience as one of our top five places to stay.  It was magical drinking Tusker beer by the light of a fire.  The view of crater lakes from our  “bandas” was spectacular.

For more images go to www.pbase.com/mikeojohnson/rwanda

*****

Mike Johnson is an avid amateur photographer who enjoys mixing travel, wildlife and landscapes all over the world. He retired from business in 2004 and moved from Minnesota to Florida, where he currently resides with Jan, his wife of 37 years. Photography became a passion post retirement and we have been fortunate to see a lot of wonderful places, meet a lot of wonderful people and experience a lot of the earth’s most exciting creatures. In the past few years Mike has been trying to raise the level of his photography by joining several well known photographers on photo safaris. Grizzly Bears in Katmai, Polar Bears in Churchill, Eagles in Homer and the Big Five in Africa have all been captured. You can find Mike’s images at: mojphoto.com