In Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park one can go gorilla hunting for a fee, it was USD 500 per person when I did it in 2013 but it is now USD750. And you can only shoot with a camera not a gun. Make sure you book well in advance as this gorilla hunt is a hot favorite for tourist coming this way. You need to arrive at the park early and you will be assigned to a guide who will give you a comprehensive brief of which family of gorillas you will be hunting, whereabouts are they last seen and how long will be the tracking be.

As I found out one cannot get close to wild unhabituated gorillas. The park rangers need several years to habituate a gorilla family. What they do is when a wild family is found the park rangers will need to track the for a period of time to get them used to humans by daily contact with humans. So after a period of time when the family shows no aggression towards humans than they will be, open to tourist like us to see. If a gorilla tour brings you close to wild gorillas I would not be on it.

Our guide tells us the names of the family and each individual that we will be seeing – if we find them. We were also given a photo of the family. We were told today we are lucky as the track will be roughly 2 hours though Rwanda’s rain forest. It has happened before where you may track the whole day and not find the gorillas.

So off we go first in a truck for to a nearby village where you can hire porters to carry your stuff. And the hike begins, initially passing tea plantations and soon after into the wild virgin rainforest with some steep slope to climb and descend. So a certain fitness level will be very useful. I was relived to see two of the guides had rifles with them.

There are rules of engagement – no closer than 22 feet, no finger pointing, keep voices low, no direct eye contact, and no flashes from cameras. Once we made contact we were only allowed an hour with the gorillas.

We knew what to expect but I am sure everyone in our group were startled when we had our first glimpse of the gorillas a female peeping at us through the green jungle cover. So for the first few minutes all is us were frozen in our tracks very silent me the photographer was unusual for not firing my camera. When the awe thawed away I went for my camera and fired away.

A note for photographers is that shooting gorillas has some difficulties like low light, heavy foliage hiding the subjects, distance from the subjects, you have to stay where you are no moving around to get the best angles unless the guide tells you to move.

The family got comfortable with us very quickly and they went about with their chore without a care in the world about us. The female that we first saw turned out to have a baby on her back. Very soon the other members of the family slowly emerged into the scant areas of forest Space for us to get better view of them. This family had xx number in the family. The matriarch is called the Silverback as he is the biggest and strongest and will have silver hair on his back. The babies are playing like climbing the trees and the mothers just like humans mothers would guarding and guiding them. When it seems dangerous the mothers would extricate them back to ground safety. Gorillas share 98 percent of our DNA.

The Silverback who appeared later was probably about 400 pounds and more than 5 feet tall. He stared at me for awhile moved directly towards me I was too awed to turn around and run, and if I did that actually is not a good idea. According to the brief given to us earlier at he park headquarters, first step aside make way and do it without showing your shivering body. If he is charging at you drop to the ground and show submission, and follow the guides instructions. I was thinking that it will be very hard not to run if it actually happened. If the silverback shows aggression like standing up tall and beating its chest and growls at you, not to worry he is probably saying “welcome to my home”. I think our guide was kidding when he said that.

The silverback really looked majestic, and without doubt looked distinguished from the rest. He was like sitting in his palace and ruling over his subjects. The silverback, moved towards me now, barely 20 feet away and still closing towards me. So what do I do, run or follow instruction. Where is our guide I can’t see him he is hidden from my view by some foliage. I cannot move much at all to give way as there is thick undergrowth all around me. At about 10 feet the silverback veered right and passed me on my left and very quickly disappeared behind the undergrowth. I breathed a sigh of relief. I think I should Change the title of this article to ” a close encounter of death with gorillas”.

The park gets good revenue from gorilla tourism. As long as tourism thrives the gorillas will survive. Occasionally gorillas are lost by traps mostly meant for other animals. The revenue is use for maintenance of the park and also more importantly to fight poaching. Visitors to the park had tripled since 2004 to more than 20000 in 2014. 1994 unimaginable genocide in Rwanda made infamous to the world by the movie “hotel Rwanda” had killed many Rwandans it also had a great toll on the countries wild life especially gorillas. 35 years ago the Virunga gorilla population was extremely endangered to around 250. The population now stands at around 480 with about 300 in the Volcanoes National park area.

Long live the mountain gorillas.