Ra's Life

Ra's Life There is so much to tell about this weekend's trip, I will try to keep it fun, interesting and in bite size pieces. Here is a photo from the front of the park office.

The permit to visit the Volcanos National park is $25 and the fee for a gorilla trek just went from $225 to $350 in the past 2 months. Thus I paid $375 for my slip of paper allowing me to be one of a maximum 40 people to gorilla trek on Saturday 7 May 2005. It turned out there was a big group for this low season - 24 people. I had really wanted to go on 'Susa' trail which has a group of 39 gorillas including new twin babies.

However 'Susa' is a much harder trek, much further from the office and I could not get anyone else interested to go so I joined 'Group 13' with 3 women from Texas. Although I was disappointed in not getting 'Susa' trail, it turned out our trek so spectacular it is hard to imagine the 'Susa' trek turning out any better than the encounter we had with 'Group 13'. My photos are in for developing.

There are many rules for the trek: of course, no leaving rubbish in the national park and once around the gorillas: no pointing, no loud talking, no flash photography, NO Running Away WHEN the gorillas move toward you (it DOES Happen)! no smoking, no feeding or giving anything to the gorillas, no looking them in the eye if they approach, etc.