Ever since I was a kid I loved animals
and trekking with gorillas in Rwanda has been high on my travel bucket list.
Getting there isn't easy
but once you do, it all seems worth it.
This is TPGtv
There are no nonstop flights from Accra to Kigali
and the quickest is Kenya Airways via Nairobi
A skycam carrier which is part of the Flying Blue frequent flyer program.
Flying Blue is a one-to-one transfer partner of AMX
Membership Rewards and Citi thank you.
You can also book Kenya awards using Delta SkyMiles
but you typically have to call.
Because of traffic delays leaving Accra
we didn't land in Kigali until after midnight
and it was here we met our local guide Pierre.
So then I decided to let loose a bit
which immediately led to a solid four-hour nap in the car.
Which was perfect because just as the sun rose we arrived at knows Volcanoes National Park.
Arguably the best destination for gorilla trekking, period.
First off gorilla trekking is not cheap.
For foreigners it's $750 per person for a permit
and only 80 permits are handed out per day so book as far in advance as possible.
It's an intimate experience too, since only eight people are allowed per trekking group
while this is expensive the money goes directly towards conservation and 24
hour a day guards for each gorilla family to prevent poaching.
Rwandans take pride in the gorillas so don't expect this to be a tourist spectacle.
Before we started our trek we met our guide Patients at the base camp.
Patience is a man who knows so much about gorillas he claims to even speak their language.
for roughly two decades Patients has spent almost every day
studying mountain gorillas in their natural habitat
after a quick safety course we were briefed on
the rules of the treck including how to behave around the gorillas,
we drove to the base of the mountain and started our uphill trek in an epic bamboo forest.
we were assigned to visit the biggest gorilla family in the park; Sosa A
which has 28 members including three silverback males.
The catch however is that they're also the hardest to get to
luckily we had a big team to help us.
luckily these guns are not for gorillas
they're actually for other animals like wild buffalo
which you may encounter along the way.
gorilla trekking is generally safe
as long as you play by the rules and listen to your guides
but at the end of the day these are wild animals
so there is always a level of risk involved
and on my trek, it wasn't animals that attacked me.
it was a nasty little plant known as stinging nettle.
Even fully clothed stinging nettle knows no bounds.
Brian: All for the gorillas
This wasn't just a prick this was a nauseating experience not unlike the
time I was scuba diving and was engulfed by man-of-war jellyfish
oh the things us travelers will do for a good story.
But the pain quickly faded once I caught my first glimpse of the Sosa A family.
a mother and her irresistibly cute baby.
Since you only have one hour to spend with the family
we moved on to another location and that's where I caught
my first glimpse of a massive silverback gorilla
according to Patients gorillas here sleep 12 hours a day
drink 17 liters of water
and have fifteen times the strength of the human body builder.
So after taking this all in we spent the remainder of our hour
looking at as many of the Sosa A family members as we could,
and while I had some nerves in the beginning it actually wasn't scary at all.
And in the end this was more than just crossing something off my travel bucket list.
It was about connectedness. If anything I felt like I was a part but the Sosa A family,
but maybe with better teeth.
On the next TPGtv
I learned just how much he Kigali Rwanda has changed
since the genocide 21 years ago
and it's remarkable.