Thursday evening was in slow motion. We got back to our cottage after the gorilla trek and asked for our fire to be lit earlier than usual. A wonderful young man came and built the biggest, bestest fire for us and made sure we had enough logs for the entire evening and then some! We decided to skip dinner and go to bed early but at 8pm there was a knock on our door. A waiter from the dining hall came to take our dinner order. They were concerned that we didn’t have lunch or dinner and it was getting late. How sweet of them. He insisted on bringing us something so we asked for fruit and sparkling water. Yum.
It’s Friday and we are up at 5:00am to get packed and checked out of the hotel. Ready for our second gorilla trek! This morning we have another good group of trekkers with us and Gilles is advocating for us to get into an easier hike than Thursday.
Today’s trek is only a 20 minute drive from the park. And guess what… the entrance into the forest means we hike through potato fields! Who knew 😉
This is our starting point. You can see Mount Karisimbi in the distance. This is extra special because on the other side was Dian Fossey’s research center, the Karisoki Research Center, where she lived and studied and ultimately was buried after her murder. This site was named for the two mountains that bordered it: Mt Karisimbi and Mt Bisoke.
Our hike turned out to be short, about 45 minutes. The terrain was not as steep as the day before and the gorilla family actually came down the mountain a bit to meet us!
Their family name Amahoro is translated as “Peace”. The following is from the parks website: https://igcp.org/mountain-gorillas/
Amahoro group is found in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and led by dominant Silverback Gahinga. The habituation of Amahoro group started in March 1996 and stopped in 1997 due to the war. The group was opened for tourism in 2000. On May 4th, 2002, the dominant Silverback Amahoro died at about 31 years of age due to an unknown cause. After his death, the two subordinate Silverbacks Ubumwe and Charles could not agree on who would step in Amahoro’s leadership. Therefore, the group split into two; the main Amahoro led by Ubumwe and another led by Charles. Charles’s group was later called Umubano. Today Amahoro group is composed of 22 individuals including 4 Silverbacks,7 Adult females,4 Sub-adult females, 3 Juvenile and 4 Infants. The group is currently led by Gahinga after Ubumwe disappeared / left the group in June 2015.
It’s hard to imagine how close we actually got. Again- the 10 feet we needed to stay away was not enforced by the gorillas! It was good that Leslie and I had different vantage points as to optimize our picture taking. Now I’ll stop talking and just let you enjoy the photos 🦍
Notice the gash in the 2nd silverbacks left cheek. This was punishment for ‘fooling around’ with one of the females. Only the lead silverback is allowed to have sex with the ladies.
Another great experience. We did get cut short of our one hour time by about 5 minutes as the family decided to move up the mountain- but we got to enjoy every moment.
It’s time to say goodbye to our porters and guide. We will leave the Volcano National Park with wonderful memories.
Next post will be of some miscellaneous excursions we took after our two treks!
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Leslie & Vickie’s 2026 Safari 
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