Rwanda gorilla trekking is done at volcanoes national park. It’s a home to the mountain gorillas and also, golden monkeys can be sighted here.
The park, boarders the Virunga national park in Congo and Mgahinga national in Uganda, it’s also famously known as a base for the primatologist Dian Fossey European tourist who died during the civil war trying to conserve the gorilla species.
Rwanda has 12 habituated gorilla families available for gorilla trekking experience. Gorilla trekking starts with a briefing from the ranger guides at the park headquarters where you join all the people in to the forest in search for the gorillas.
After the briefing, you are allocated different gorilla families that you are able to track some of the families are near the briefing area and other groups require driving a distance before the start of the hike.
Regardless of the gorilla group allocated to you, there are always higher chances of sighting the gorillas in their habitat either feeding in the forest or playing around with their young ones.
Currently its $1500 per individual to track the gorillas in their natural habitat for a period of hour from the time you meet the gorillas.
But the normal exercise can last for 30 min to half hours of the day depending on their current location from the previous day.
On the same spot, you can also go for gorilla habituation experience, this is a lot more exciting as you get to spend a lot more time with the gorilla for a period of four hours from the time you encounter them.
The gorilla habituation permit is $1500 per permit including the guides and park entry fees and these requirements are the same as gorilla trekking, only the time spent with the gorillas differs.
Volcanoes National Park harbors a larger number of primate species where by tourists have an opportunity to study and research much more on golden monkeys but it’s not much popular than the mountain gorilla trekking safari experience that brings a lot of tourists in Rwanda every year.
Golden monkey trekking starts early with a short briefing at Kinigi head office about the dos and the don’ts of the primates then you set off in search for the monkeys along the swamps and the forests during the walk in the forest, you may also have an opportunity to sight other animal species, birds and a lot of butterflies in the forest and along the swamps since monkey move a lot in search for food. The golden monkey tracking fees goes for $100 per person trekking.
