Our third and final trek to see a new family of gorillas, this time the 22 member strong Kwitonda family. This family has 3 silverbacks and a lot of children, the youngest being just 20 days old.

We had lucked out on the first two treks, as we needed less than 30 minutes to reach each of the families, this time we thought there’s no way it would be that easy again. We were wrong, this time it took about 8 minutes of walking into the forest before we were welcomed by more gorillas than I thought possible. They were literally everywhere, each way you turned your head there was members of the Kwitonda family. We had seen pairs of gorillas in the previous two treks, but this was like a family reunion.

The real joy of this group  was all the kids, from babies all the way to adolescents. We were very lucky to witness a lot of play fighting between the different age groups.

There was one gorilla that couldn’t find anyone to play with, so he came over to me 3 times while I was sitting on the ground and smacked me in the back wanting to play. The guide would communicate to him and make him go back to the family, but he kept coming. Having an interaction like that was quite surreal.

In case you didn’t know, baby gorillas are about as cute as an animal can be.

What was really interesting to watch is how the adults in the whole family would step in when the kids were getting out of hand by being too rough with each other. The alpha female would have none of it and lay down the law.

There were times I would put the camera down and just watch them, they’re beautiful, hilarious, intimidating and calming all at the same time.

I made the mistake of reading internet comments about the incident in Cincinnati, I am quite lucky to be experiencing gorillas this way and not being inundated by the stupidity of the media and people in North America.

People do say that primates are a lot like humans, and in many ways they are. One interesting similarity is that there are refugee gorilla families that have fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo and gone to the Rwandan side of the mountain because of the various conflicts there. Human and human as well as human and gorilla. The gorillas then become the responsibility of Rwanda for conservation and no one is complaining.

I had no idea what to expect when I came here, and I still have a hard time describing how great the last 3 days have been. Maybe once I get home things will sink in.

We’re off to Uganda tomorrow to get ready for the chimpanzees, and I’m sure that’s going to be a whole different experience.

Thank-you Rwanda.