The trek

Yesterday we drove two hours from Kigali to a small town below Volcanoes National Park. The mountain gorilla's habitat is on the sides of 5 inactive volcanoes which are situated (along with 2 active volcanoes) on the border between Rwanda, Uganda and Congo (DRC).
This morning, we were up at 5, breakfast at 5:30 and off to the park at 6. At the park we were assigned a guide, Oliver, a gorilla group, the Lucky family, and 2 more group members, an American and Brit who work in Kinshasa, she for an NGO, and he for the British cultural attache.
We were driven a short distance, where we met another guide and our porters (mine looked like Michael on the Wire). We then walked for an hour, up through farm fields, to the edge of the park. Our staff included armed guards as well as our guides and porters. The guides were equipped with walky-talkies and they talked with guys who were following the gorillas. We then proceeded to climb up the volcanoes through the bush with Jim setting the pace. At places we followed a buffalo path, with recent offerings marking the way. At times, our porters hacked through the brush for us.
After about another hour, we came to 2 female gorillas and a baby, eating breakfast. They were content to let us photograph them and obliged us with some chest beating and howling.
The Lucky group is a recently formed group with one silver back male, 5 females and 5 babies.
We then moved and found a group, muching on bamboo shoots about 15 yds away. 2 babies scaled bamboo trees and swung down to the ground gently when the bamboo trees bent with their weight. In walked the silver back. He weighed about 600 pounds. He proceeded to hunker down about 25 yds away and groom one of the babies while two females munched away. Many pictures later we moved again and came upon 2 females roughhousing, with a baby looking on. The baby proceeded to walk within 5 yards of us. Then one of the females charged us, within 5 yards. My heart nearly stopped. A few minutes later the roughhousing became more confrontational and the females howled and fought with each other. All of a sudden there was this roar and the silverback forcefully intervened to break up the fight. This too took place within 5 yards of our group. Fortunately, one of our group got a picture, but it sure wasn't me.
That was it. Our time was up. We marched down the volcano, clammered over the stone fence indicating the park boundary, hiked through the fields and back to our land rover. We stopped at the park office and received commemorative diplomas. Jim's was presented to the "silverback."
We arrived back around 1.
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