Mountain Gorilla's, Uganda and Kenya

Last blog I think I left off in Kigali Rwanda. Since then we have travelled through Uganda and Kenya and just arrived in Cairo. So I need to catch up.

After we left Kigali we travelled to Musanze for some mountain gorilla tracking and we climbed Mt Bisoke, an extinct volcano apparently on the boarder of Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC (Domocratic Republic of Congo) at the top. It was right near where Diane Fossey lived and studyed the gorillas and where she is now buried with her mate digit.

Tracking the gorillas was an amasing experience. They are so big and powerful and intriguing to watch. We saw the Amahoro family group (Amahoro group were named after the genocide and means peace).
I naively thought we would turn up on the edge of the group and observe them from the side as they sat there in the grass and did their thing, but it wasn't like that at all. For a start we were in bamboo and really thick vegetation. As we came across the first big black ball of fluff and watched for a while we soon realised that we were actually surrounded by them as we could hear all the crunching sounds of vegetation around us. It really got my heart racing hearing and seeing these huge creatures come crashing though the bamboo around us. It was such a great experience though. We were supposed to keep a distance of 7 m at all times, but in practise this was difficult, not because we were approaching them, but because they kept approaching us, and walking backwards up a slippery steep slope in thick vegetation was hard. We got to see some babies in the group, one very small one with it's mother and another one a little older and more curious. This one actually approached us, a little unnerving as the dominant silverback was right near by. I really didn't want to annoy that one....it was huge!!! Unfortunatley the 2nd dominant male had lost his hand from a snare...very sad. As we watched I could see him struggle to scrtach his other arm, the rangers told us he was coping very well though. You can only stay for an hour to prevent stressing the animals. Just as we were about to leave 2 boisterous males burst right through the midle of the group and stopped to touch the ranger on the leg...it was an exciting way to end the experience.

After our time in Rwanda we got a bus to Kampala in Uganda and spent a few days at Murchison Falls for a safari, a boat cruise up that part of the Nile and a hike around the falls. Then we went and hired mountain bikes in Jinja, the source of the Nile River and camped by Bunjagali Falls. After that we spent a few days camping and hiking next to Sipi Falls near Mt Elgon on the Ugandan side. That was a beatuful spot!

We spent the last week in Sub-Saharan Africa in Kenya, travelling from Western Kenya to Nairobi through Eldoret and Nukuru. We hired an old series 3 Land Rover and camped in Lake Bogoria NP. We got the campsite all to ourselves. It was a bit scary hearing all the baboons screeching around us in the dark though...but they kept their distance, until the morning when they pooed all over the tent! Luckily it was wet season so the rain washed most of it off. At Nukuru we took the Landie through Nakuru NP to do our last African safari and got a fair bit of animal spotting in, which was nice.

We arrived in Cairo Yesterday and are so far loving Egypt....now I'm excited to experience Northern Africa.