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July 17 Thursday. Lake Kivu to Volcano National Park.
At 4 pm we arrived at the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge . The last kilometre was over a really atrocious road which was challenging even for a 4*4: This will have to be traversed several times as we are here for three days and have several activities ahead. We were shown to cabin 31 this being at some considerable distance from the main building, Later measured as 250 yards. It was a pleasant room quite cavernous inside and very cold and with no view whatsoever. So we went back to reception and said that we thought we needed a room a bit nearer the main building, especially as there was no Wi-Fi in the rooms. This proved impossible but we were promised that we would be moved tomorrow.
Gorilla View hotel. A bad first night, in a cold room at the far end of the estate. After they moved us the next day to a closer room , things looked up. The staff were very good and genuinely welcoming. The hotel bedrooms and public rooms are tired and need redecorating. The meals were all buffet. We had three meals a day for three days. They were all virtually inedible. Cold, overcooked. The plates were stone cold, and cold food from the buffet made for a less than ideal combination.
This hotel's main business is in groups, so if you come as just a couple, you are marginalized to a certain extent. The dinning room is mainly filled with tables of 8 to 12 for (noisy) groups. The food is all buffet - and tends to be cold food and on cold plates, and items are not replaced if they run out. Having said that the kitchen and restaurant staff all tried to solve the problems. But in the end we tended to avoid the food and stick to fruit The public rooms are tired and in need of redecoration. Best advice is to discover the bar where they have an excellent fire. But again you may not get a seat if a group has bagged the entire area. We had a bad first night, in a cold room at the far end of the estate. After they moved us the next day to a closer room , things looked up. It was 250 meter walk and the nights can pour with rain, and no umbrellas in the rooms They do put hot water bottles in your bed at night - put if you are in one of the far rooms you will not get one. They light a fire in your room, which is both very welcome and very necessary. The wood is rationed a bit, but I understand why And finally the one real gem is the shoe cleaning that they do when you come back from a trek. Chris's white trainers, which did not look anything other than dark drown after our trek, were returned pristine white and dry within 45 minutes of returning to the hotel - I have no idea on how they did it, but it was fantastic service The staff were very good and genuinely welcoming.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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Our itinerary for the morrow was a guided nature walk but our guide knew nothing about this, neither did the hotel. So we said it didn’t matter at all and at some point a visit to the Dian Fossey museum was suggested so we agreed to that and to be picked up at 10 am
At 5:30 pm someone arrived to light a fire in our room but the promised electric heater never materialised and the fire gave out zero heat for the first hour at least. When we went up the dinner around 7 pm David wrote an email to Expert Africa saying he was a little put out by the conditions here. David was suffering from gastric flu probably so was not in the best of conditions. We both enjoyed a soup but we’re sorely disappointed in the buffet. David having nothing and Chris a tiny bit of rice, some vegetables and one piece of Osso Bucco in a sauce. There were three large groups in the dining room and just a few couples.
After dinner we asked whether the Wi-Fi was better in another part of the building and were directed to the lounge, where Chris sighted a fire in the adjacent bar. So we settled ourselves there and got very warm and snug and enjoyed to mojito‘s, also chatting to 2 Australians whilst we were there the heavens really opened and there were thunder all around and in the end we just had to brave it when there was a slight respite in the rain and attempt the walk back to the cabin in these conditions. It had poured with rain before we went up to dinner and we secured two umbrellas from the manager for a long walk back to the room. It seemed a bit shorter in fact although I was worried I might slip on the very wet pavement full of puddles. On arriving at the room there were two people in it tending to the fire and they had also installed an efficient electric heater so we became quite snug. We went to sleep listening to the torrential rain pounding on the roofs and thinking of what this would do to mountain gorilla terrain.
July 18 Friday. Mountain Gorilla View Lodge.
A leisurely start to the day with breakfast around 8.30 and then we went out with our driver to the Dian Fossey museum. Here we spent two hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. Chris was able to read all the information using the Ray Ban glasses as she could connect her phone to the centres Internet.
There was also a 3-D experience where we sat in two chairs with goggles on and flew over the park and right up to the gorillas and this was really fantastic. Afterwards we walked round the grounds and encountered a group of 30 or so 3 to 6 year-old playing on the grass. We had put our boys on a wall to take a picture of them with the volcano in the background and the kids made a beeline for the bears and I had to rescue them with some difficulty and then they wanted my binoculars and looked in both ends seeing absolutely nothing. Finally to distract them David took a photo of them and showed them the photo on his phone and one of the teachers rescued us. But later on as we walked past one of the museum staff, they was very worried that we might be using the photo for a bad intention.
Back at the lodge, our luggage had been moved to room 16 and this was indeed somewhat nearer the main hotel. We settled in yet again and read for awhile before going into lunch. Lunch was nothing special, but the soups were always fairly good. We then sat outside connected to the Internet and shared a beer before going into the shop to hire gaiters for our two trips to trek to see animals on the next two days. Then an afternoon of reading and we went up in light rain to see a local group performing with great enthusiasm in the covered area just outside the dining room. At 5:30, the fire was again lit for us.
We went into dinner before seven as we felt the food might be slightly hotter then and indeed the kitchen have provided really warm soup bowls and dinner plates so David had done some good at lunchtime by giving them a lesson on how to run a restaurant. After dinner we sat in the bar with a mojito talking to the two Australians whom we had met the night before and who had seen the Gorillas this morning. They told us that there was a lot of mud involved.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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July 19th Saturday Trek to see the mountain Gorillas
We had an early breakfast, got the hired gaiters placed on our feet and were off with Jean Luc by 6:30 am for the Park Centre.
There was organised chaos and we eventually got into a group of eight with a guide., Francis. The other six in the group were one group of three Americans (three men) and the other was a family of three with a son of about 20. We were driven by Jean Luc with Francis in the car to the starting point, this being the nearest place on the road to where they wanted to enter the national park. We walked through potato fields for 20 minutes or so before reaching the wall of the National Park and here there were wooden steps over it. Almost immediately we were confronted by a pool of water in deep mud on the track. It was impossible to circumnavigate this, with the result that our feet were covered in water and my white trainers were a dark brown immediately.
After this there were several other boggy patches but none as bad. It was just pure mud. After about 30 minutes, we got to a clearing where we left the porters and our backpack and continued, with a Ted each snuggling inside our anoraks. The idea is not to spook the Gorillas too much, so numbers are cut (no porters) and no trekking poles (they apparently can be mistaken for spears by the Gorillas)
Poor Pembroke fell out of David's anorak, straight into deep mud, and looked a very sorry little bear.
So it was only a short while before we encountered the Sabyinyo Gorilla Family (a group made up of 18 mountain gorilla individuals). This included the only bald gorilla in the world. The 2018 census showed that there are now 600+ mountain Gorillas. We had just over an hour looking at these gorillas moving just once and six of our group including David went a little further up to see the actual supreme male of the group. The whole experience was quite wondrous. We returned by a slightly quicker route.
Back on the road we were taken back to Mountain Gorilla View hotel by Jean Luc, Francis still being in the car. we showered and changed and then went in to yet another buffet lunch. We opted to take our desert out to a table in the sunshine. Later on we had a wander round the grounds of the hotel, not finding several of the numbers 1 to 34 of the cabins. At 5 pm, we went out and sat on the large open space where there were four chairs and the local people performing traditional dances, with the backdrop of the volcano and we thoroughly enjoyed this and took several photos of the boys with the group and their drums.
Then back to the room where the fire was lit and enjoyed sitting around this until yet another buffet dinner. We retired to the bar afterwards chatting to the same Australians as the night before, and enjoying a mojito. Then back to the room and read around the wondrous fire.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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July 20 Sunday. Volcano National Park to Kigali.
Another early morning start exactly the same as on Saturday, this time to view golden monkeys here the group consisted of 16other people and we were unfortunate to have the majority of ours were over keen American photographers. They were very pushy with their long lenses and sometimes three cameras each. Here we hired a Porter, Gregory, who did not speak any English but I could in fact have managed to walk across the potato fields this time without him. As soon as we got into the park we left the porters behind with our backpack, had to put on our face marks. We immediately we encountered a group of monkeys. But the going here was much more difficult - through thick bamboo and sing nettles and I really did need help here.
Our group leader, Constantine, realised this and assigned a female tracker to take care of me. She was very good and gentle opposed to Gregory who hurt me every time he took my hand and had to be persuaded, as we went across the potato fields, to let me just put a hand on his shoulder for balance. We spent over an hour observing monkeys who are more difficult for me to distinguish than the Gorillas had been, but I could track their progress and we moved several times through difficult terrain. The sun shone as we’ve made our way back across these potato fields and it was really quite idyllic. We arrived back at the road long after the other 14 of our group.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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We were back at the hotel by 11.15 and changed in our room and packed up after a little problem with the small suitcase ( I had apparently put the key of the padlock into the case, and it had been locked inside the case). We had an early buffet lunch outside the restaurant, packed a little box of desserts, and were away on our journey by about 12.20. And it was then a pleasant three hour drive through scenic mountain scenery to Kigali.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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