Bishoke Volcano, or "Gorillas on the Piste"

April 7th

Apologies – this is another very long entry, but read it through and I’m sure you’ll see why I’m so enthralled with this magic place.

Up just as dawn is breaking; last night’s volcanoes just emerging from the dark. Take a few snaps of the dawn scene while shovelling down breakfast. The two closest volcanoes are remarkably free from cloud. Our driver materialises at the right time, and we roar off through Ruhengeri – to find a garage. Why on earth can’t these people ever get themselves organised and get fuel before they pick up their clients. Do they really think we’re going to do a runner and leave them with a bill for a tankful? He’s charging us 60 dollars for taking us about 25 miles in total, and hanging around for us while we’re on the mountain. That’s an extortionate charge by any standards; it’s about 50 times an average Rwandan daily wage. It would be nice to take photos out of the window, but the window winder handle has fallen off. I’m so annoyed!

At the National Park headquarters we find ourselves with two fellow-climbers. David and Lika are two Americans working for an aid agency in Darfur, and they prove to be both good company and good, experienced mountaineers. David tells us about his work in Darfur (not as hairy or as confrontational as CNN news would have us believe), and the role of the Sudanese Government (cynical in the extreme – they rule by pitting one group against another – with unlimited weapons to the group they want to prevail). But his idea of an aid agency is very different from ours. While we live among the locals and struggle on minimum wages, his lot live in a secure compound without any local contact, and travel from place to place by helicopter. Talk about feeling the poor relations!

Also at the Park Headquarters we find that all the day’s groups – gorilla watchers, mountaineers, lake walkers etc – are all booked to start at the same time. Something tells me this is for the park staff’s convenience, rather than for any pressing need in terms of the experiences.

We pay a small fortune in park fees (entry to the park fee, climbing the mountain fee; the man is bureaucratic to a fault and simply will not accept that I’m a Rwandan resident because I don’t yet have my green card). Yet in Akagera they were more than happy to accept my VSO card as evidence of resident status. I get the distinct impression that they couldn’t care if anyone came to the park or not. They’d probably prefer to be without visitors; they’d still get paid.

We set off again in the car to approach close to the volcano Bishoke. At 3711m (11875 feet) it’s a serious mountain in its own right, and the third highest of all the volcanoes in this group. You can only climb one other at the moment; Karisimbi (the highest) requires a 2-day expedition for which you have to provide tents for the guide as well as you etc. Talk about a system designed to deter rather than encourage visitors!

As we bump over more and more stony tracks we pass mile after mile of potato fields. In this colder, higher air most of Rwanda’s spuds are grown. Also there are fields and fields of Pyrethrum flowers, with their essential oils extracted in a local village co-operative and used to make insect repellents.

One unexpected bonus is that we find that circular, thatched huts are not only still in use here, but actually being built from new. They make some super photos. I thought these traditional huts were a thing of the past, just museum pieces. Not here. This is a much poorer part of the country than around Gitarama; people’s clothes are that much poorer and a far bigger proportion are barefoot. There are plenty of trees and grasses to make thatched huts, so they are cheaper even than semi-dur mud bricks.

Eventually we stop and get out of our cars. For we five climbers there are around a dozen men desperately seeking work as porters. But after being stung so hard for park fees we’re none of us in the mood to contribute any further to the local economy. We have a guide, plus a second National Park member, and three regular Rwandan Army soldiers to escort and protect us. One of these three speaks French and is chatty; we learn that he’s one of the Rwandan contingent which recently served a tour in Darfur with the African Peacekeeping force. And David and Lika confirm the Rwandans gave good account of themselves in Darfur – the regular army is highly thought of.

We start walking through the potato and pyrethrum fields as the morning mist is lifting from the ground. Cows are being herded in the distance; you almost expect them to have bells round their necks in this mountain region. (But they don’t). Potato fields extend right up to the park boundary, which is an impressive stone wall, intended as much to keep gorillas and buffaloes from wandering into the populated areas as much as to keep people out of the protected areas. You find potatoes growing in the tiniest spaces between huge blocks of lava bedrock, right up to the very stones of the park wall.

Once into the park proper, everything changes. No cultivation, no habitation, no people. Buffalo dung all over the path, which means we need to walk quietly and be aware of what’s around us. Fortunately we never come across a buffalo all day, which suits me fine because they’re such vicious and temperamental beasts.

We wind up through heavy woodland until eventually there’s an open glade and a fork in the path. One branch goes a few miles up towards Karisimbi to Dian Fossey’s grave. There’s a hefty extra park fee if we want to detour to the grave, so we take pictures of the sign and plod on.

Now any normal mountain path zigzags to give an easier climb and reduce erosion. Well, not in Rwanda. The Bishoke path runs straight up and down the mountain. This means it becomes a river after heavy rain. Even after several dry days it’s very muddy and slippery. At the height of the rainy season it must be all but impassable. We are amazingly lucky that not only is today perfect weather for the climb, but that we’ve had a run of dry days to give the path time to shed some of its surface water. It’s clear that at some time in the past they have made steps on the worst part with little logs; this reduces erosion as well as helping climbers. But over several seasons most of the steps have been dislodged, and nobody has made any attempt to renew them. As a result the “path” consists of steep steps of around 18-24 inches, and deep slots which can easily hold and twist your ankles. To have to keep taking huge steps on such a steep slope requires far more energy than on a graded path; this makes Bishoke the equivalent in terms of physical wear and tear of a far higher mountain. It’s a ludicrously stupid way to manage a mountain path. We are paying ridiculously huge sums to climb this thing and they can’t even be bothered to maintain a safe path.

Not only that, but it becomes clear that the guide has no emergency kit (first aid etc), and he sees his job as consisting of walking up the slope as fast as he can until we’re all but out of sight behind him, then waiting for us to catch up. He almost never explains anything of interest along the way. Geert is fuming; I’m ready to blow a safety valve! We’re not even half way up Bishoke and we all agree this guy’s going to get just a minimum tip at the end of the day!

There’s lots of dung along the path; so much so that we have to be careful where we put our feet. I ask the guide what sort it is, and he tells us it’s Gorilla poo. In other words, the gorillas are using our path as a highway, and therefore we might expect to bump into some. And if I hadn’t asked, he wouldn’t have even bothered to tell us.

The climb gets very steep, and in the humidity it’s clear that Jan is struggling. I’m finding it very hard, and I thought I was used to high mountains!

After a few more minutes the guide points out the only thing all day which he managed without prompting. Right next to the path there’s a big area of flattened grass about 6 feet diameter, liberally coated in squashed gorilla poo. It’s one of their sleeping nests, and we’re very lucky to chance upon it. So we dutifully take pictures, poo and all, and stumble on up the mountain.

After a while Jan agrees to call it a day and return down the slope. It must be a terrible disappointment for him, and I blame the silly way the park is managed for causing a basically very fit person to have to give up. He would never have had such problems on a properly graded path.

We go from dense broadleaf forest into a much more open vegetation, with giant lobelias prominent. There’s still far too little bare rock and far too much slippery mud for my liking. Then in the next zone we come onto a hanging bog, and the going gets squelchy. I discover my new boots aren’t as good as I needed them to be; the treads get clogged with mud and they slide alarmingly easily.

I’m nearly ready to abandon the climb myself; I feel so cross with the way everything is run that even some spectacular views across into Uganda don’t lift me the way they lift Geert. And the stupid guide never says things like “see that lobelia on the skyline – when we reach it we’re only ten minutes from the top”. Those are the things a good guide does to keep up his group’s morale – you need to try to ensure that everybody makes it to the summit!

But reach the top we do, and the view across to the other volcanoes is brilliant. There’s a deep crater with a big lake inside it, and wisps of cloud swirling round the top. All morning there’s been cloud threatening to come down on us, but our luck has held steady and the cloudbase has been rising at roughly the same rate as we have been ascending. We pause for photos. The far side of the crater is, of course, in the Congo, but we realise that one of our military escort’s jobs is to make sure we don’t set foot outside Rwanda. Can’t blame them, but it’s galling.

We spend about forty minutes on the top, then start down. If it was hard work going up, it’s just plain dangerous coming down. I’m slipping and sliding all over the place on the slippery mud, and it’s a minor miracle that I don’t twist an ankle or worse. On one occasion I fall completely base-over-apex and end up muddied and bruised. Fortunately I don’t bang my head, so I’m not concussed. The two guides, of course, are nowhere around to help or to break my fall. At intervals along the path I see pieces of twine tied to trees; I remember from Nyungwe that these mark unusual or valuable trees which are regenerating themselves with side shoots, and so I tell the others. The guide never says a word.

We’re almost out of the park when, quite suddenly, the guides shush us to quiet, and one of the soldiers makes a good impression of gorilla grunts. We must be very close to a group of them. In fact, now we’ve stopped and are standing still, we can hear them: there’s a hell of a lot of crashing around going on somewhere just off to our right in a zone of dense bushes. At the same time there’s an intense smell of gorilla in the air.

OK, Épi, so you want to know what gorillas smell like. It’s like very strong B O (think market porters), but with vegetable overtones (think fresh cow dung). Difficult to put any other way, but it’s very distinctive and even if you’d never smelt it before you’d easily be able to put it down to gorillas.

And there, coming towards us on our path, and about fifty yards away, is a female adult gorilla with a baby on her back. We snatch pictures. She ambles along, totally unfazed by our presence and then, when she’s no more then a few yards away, she veers off to our right and disappears into thick undergrowth to join the others hiding there. Any just as we’re all giving each other the “did I really just see a gorilla or am I dreaming” look, a massive male silverback swaggers along at the rear. He’s too close even for me to take a picture; his head and shoulders alone fill my viewfinder but there’s too much vegetation obscuring him for me to get a picture. Fortunately the Americans, to my left, have him in clear shot. The gorilla gives us just one unconcerned stare before he, too, ambles into the dense grasses on our right. It’s amazing. For an animal so big to be able to totally disappear into bushes – it’s just like shutting a door on them.

For a few seconds nobody moves. We’re just so amazed at what we’ve seen. We’ve had a spot of gorilla watching for free……

Despite sore feet and aching knees, we’re all walking on air the last couple of miles back to our cars. There’s the usual reception committee of children asking for sweets and adults begging for money, but we’re all comparing photos of apes. I’ve got just one decent shot of the female. Geert’s camera is playing up and hasn’t registered his shot at all. Jan, of course, is not with us. So we beg David and Lika to send us emails of their pictures, which, predictably, look brilliant. Wonder if it’ll happen….

Back at the hotel, and after a hot bath, we drink too much, and discover a Rwandan woman being filmed by a Dutch TV crew comprising two nice looking women. Now Geert’s never one to resist a challenge, so he goes straight into chat-up mode. Turns out the Rwandan woman has lived in Holland and speaks Dutch, though with a Rwandan accent (I’m getting this from G himself; how ever else would I know?). She is on a project to get street women out of prostitution and back into education, and within a few minutes we’re all taking about “catch-up centres” and sources of educational materials.

Several beers later, we crawl into bed. After a day like today we’re almost ready to forgive the smarmy manager and inept guide and rapacious Park Authority. Almost.

There’s something about seeing two adult gorillas coming towards you which is just impossible to put into words. It’s different from the organised tracking safaris, where the trackers know where the animals are, and you’re warned when you’re getting close. On those trips you feel that you, the tourist, are in charge – that you’ll meet the gorillas when you want and when you’re ready. We, in contrast, had the real thing – a chance encounter with a family group, unplanned, and on their terms, not ours.

It’s difficult to see what, if anything, in this beautiful country is going to top that as an experience. I’ll post my gorilla picture a.s.a.p.