Gorillas!

This is Charles:

He lives on the side of a volcano in Rwanda.

A two-hour vertical trek and $500 later, we found ourselves with just one hour to observe, take pictures, and interact with Charles and his lovely and super playful family.

The experience, without exaggeration, was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. We ascended to 3,040 meters of the 3,700 meters that is Bisoke volcano to find the Umubano group of 9 silverback mountain gorillas.
We only ended up spotting 6 of the 9, but we got some good face-time with the newest and most important member of the family, baby gorilla!

Baby gorilla is 11-months-old and still quite a bit furrier than her relatives. Against the guide’s wishes and the trackers grunts signaling for the baby to stop, she still persistently approached our group, seemingly wanting to play with all of us as she would with her older siblings.

Everyone says the same thing after seeing the gorillas -- that their human-ness is astounding. It comes across almost as cliché as the “worth every penny” or “the fastest hour of my life,” sound-bites that get thrown around when someone mentions seeing the gorillas. Yet, as trite as this is about to sound, when I caught the gaze of a younger member of the gorilla family and we held contact for a moment, I just couldn’t get over the feelings of recognition and mutual curiosity.