First Day in the Volcanoes National Park

After a few weeks of bureaucracy, I finally received the park permit last week. It will allow me to enter for free in the next six months and visit all animal groups (gorillas, monkeys, buffaloes, elephants, antelopes, etc).

I decided to take it easy, so yesterday I chose the golden monkeys. They live only in Central Africa, and they are endangered - of course. At least in Rwanda they are not poached for bush-meat (unlike in neighboring DRC)...

What I didn't realize was that being a "mzungu" I needed a special escort in the park. All Rwandans (researchers and students) could go right ahead, whereas I needed a guy with a gun. I was, actually, quite taken with the idea. For the first time in my life I would have "my own soldier".

The monkeys were ranging somewhere around 2,600 m in altitude (which is higher than the highest mountain peak in Romania), but the hike was relatively easy. Until the park border we had to meander through village crops (mostly potatoes), and then we reached the bamboo area.

Walking through that vegetation is sooo different from any other forest experience I had before. The bamboo stems seem so fragile, but they are so sturdy and so dense. At times it felt like we were going beneath a stack of spears. I also learnt, the hard way, that fern stems sting like crazy.

We reached the monkey group around 11 a.m. and stayed with them (or chased them) for a couple of hours. They are such cute, funny animals!!! And although they come very close to you, they are so hard to photograph, as they just won't sit still for one second. Or they'll be obscured by thick vegetation, even if they are less than a meter away. I was imagining already how hard it would be to shoot a documentary on them. It would take days, or even weeks, for some decent footage.

I did get some good pics, though, and I also managed not to get peed on (I understand they love peeing on the people underneath the trees). And yes, I also did have a swell time with my private soldier (professionally only, of course). He now says he'll put in a request to always accompany me from now on :))