Generally speaking, the Rwanda gorilla trek takes two to five hours, depending on where the gorilla family is located. Each gorilla family can have up to eight guests. You are permitted an hour to view the gorillas once you get there. 15 years old is the minimum age to undertake gorilla trekking in Rwanda. While going gorilla trekking is thought to be one of the most amazing wildlife experiences, it’s not like going on a typical game drive or going to the neighborhood zoo.
Hiking over challenging landscape, thick foliage, bodies of water, hills and valleys is part of gorilla trekking. For those who are not used to jogging for extended periods of time, the exercise can be rather demanding and taxing, leaving you worn out and with a sore knee. The exercise goes beyond simply trekking on well-marked, paved routes. Once needs to contend with thorns, deep vegetation, and biting insects.
A genuine worry in some parks is also rain and altitude sickness. Your gorilla trek in Rwanda will directly support the preservation of these magnificent animals and the surrounding communities since the gorillas are rigorously safeguarded by rangers and police and 10% of the money from gorilla trekking permits is utilized for conservation and community development. A chain of volcanoes spanning roughly 50 miles along the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, the Virunga Mountains in Central Africa are home to little over half of the 1,000 mountain gorillas that are still alive today. Either go straight to Volcanoes National Park or spend a few days in Kigali at the beginning or conclusion of your journey.
About 105 kilometers separate the park from Kigali, and the travel from the airport takes two hours. Because of the 20 years of research conservationist Dian Fossey did on mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, poaching was stopped in time to save these magnificent creatures. The park is included in Dian’s work-recording movie “Gorillas in the Mist” (1988). Twelve mountain gorilla families are presently living in Volcanoes National Park.
There are just 96 permits available each day, and trekking groups will be allocated a particular gorilla family for tracking. Each group can have no more than eight members (see below for additional details on permits). Determining a gorilla family to hike to mostly depends on how long and difficult the hike would be. Depending on where you are monitoring the specific gorilla family, your trek can take two to nine hours. Walking with gorillas at Volcanoes National Park requires a permit.
Gorilla permits are severely limited to 96 a day since there are just 12 habitual gorilla families visible and only 8 people can see each gorilla family daily. Rwandan gorilla tracking requires a minimum age of 15 for safety reasons. Call our team of experts at 0117 313 3300 to find out more and design your ideal holiday. Gorilla habituation at Bwindi gives tourists additional time with the gorillas, who are still acclimatizing.
If they let their tour operator know ahead of time for better planning, physically challenged and elderly individuals can also go gorilla trekking. Mountain gorilla population has been brought back from extinction in part by gorilla tourism, but there are still very severe risks to their existence. Because they lack the required immunity to fend against human illnesses, gorillas are readily infected and can be seriously threatened by unwell people. When one looks into the recessed, courteous eyes of a gorilla, nearly everyone who visits feels a mystical sensation of recognition.
Though many elderly tourists find gorilla treks to be fairly difficult, it is quite unusual for them to be so afraid to give up. Trekking mountain gorillas are also a well-developed and professionally run tourist experience. Upon finding or seeing the mountain gorillas (coming face to face with your wild cousins), you will have an hour to engage with them in person, observe and relate to their behavior, snap photos, and make movies for your African female star gorilla tour. Actually, compared to most primate experiences, gorilla trekking is a far more risky endeavor.
The specific location of the gorillas on the day of trekking and the degree of the route’s steepness make the second portion more unpredictable. Conversely, everything might work out for you, and the gorilla trekking experience will be little more than a walk in the woods. All other activities in Volcanoes National Park, including gorilla trekking, begin at the tourist center in the large settlement of Kinigi, which is situated 2,200 meters above the eucalyptus-covered Virunga foot slopes (4* S 01°25.783, E 029°35.71). Spending time in Rwandan bamboo forests watching these hysterical, cherub-cheek-tiny primates swing is well worth the trip. Poppy is thought to have been one of the gorillas from the first gorilla troop Dian Fossey studied.
NOTE: Only in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo can you observe mountain gorillas (gorilla Berengei Berengei) in the entire globe. No matter how fit you believe you are, you should never undervalue the need of psychological preparation before going on a gorilla trek.