Arrival in Benin - Grand Popo, Snake Temple in Ouidah etc.

I was elated to get to my 50th country..my 18th African country - Benin. Better yet, we just walked into Benin from the Togolese-Beninois border. Benin does not need visas for Africans. Amazing, isn’t it? Check out more Africa visa latest updates here.

I experienced so many new and magical things during my Togo-Benin-Ghana trip. A few highlights...Got to Grand Popo, a resort town 20 minutes from the Togo-Benin border on Friday afternoon...Trip was quick, visa process was easy....no visas needed for most Africans coming to Benin. Only hiccup was that my African/Ghana black soap shower gel poured on most of the clothes I came with.... You will soon see why this is important. Spent a lot of beach time in Grand Popo... Lovely lovely views...I might not encourage anyone to dive in wholeheartedly into the ocean though...it has those life threatening waves and currents that I have come to respect and fear from the Atlantic as an Indian ocean typa girl...

Saturday we left for Ouidah - the home of Vodou religion..Forget what Hollywood told you about the religion (poking holes in dolls, hexes etc..) Vodou is a religion primarily practiced by the Fon people of Benin, Nigeria, Ghana and Togo and by people of similar descent in the Americas and Caribbean countries. In Vodou, all creation (plants, animals, objects) are divine and therefore contains the power of the divine. In Ouidah, the pythons of the snake temple are revered and worshipped. I'm not their spokesperson, but they might be the happiest snakes worldwide.. during the day, they roam the city, visit people's houses and are treated with courtesy. At night, they return to the snake temple.

I should add though that I have never been scared of snakes in my life. In fact as a child, I wished to have a pet snake - in addition to the many animals we already had at home. My dad, who also loved all animals... (Mum loves animals, but is terrified of snakes), used to sometimes take me and Wakonyo Kimeria to snake park. He would play with the big snakes and we would get to play with the small ones...So as much as I will go running for the hills if I see a cockroach, grasshopper or cricket....I don't get the same response for snakes. I think they are wonderful. Snake temple was nice. I got to cuddle some pythons, then we went into their main rooms....I loved that our guide knocked before we got in....I think snakes also like a heads up and we took off our shoes as we got into the main snake room housing 50 pythons. Quite curiously, the snake temple is located directly opposite the Ouidah cathedral.

Why swimming in Lake Tanganyika, Burundi needs to be on your bucketlist

Taking a dip in the longest freshwater lake in the world can be both dangerous and thrilling. If you search “swimming in Lake Tanganyika,” one of the top results is about a 70-year-old man-eating crocodile named Gustav. But there is much more to Lake Tanganyika — which is 410 miles long and runs across Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Zambia — than hungry reptiles.

In the west of Burundi, in a remote and isolated town known as Rumonge, the shores next to the Blue Bay Resort are covered in white sand. The area is free, thankfully, of crocodiles and hippos. Lake Tanganyika is in the western branch of East Africa’s Rift Valley and is surrounded by mountains that make the views — both in and out of the deep water — spectacular. You might just forget that you are in a landlocked country. With fishermen in rowboats in the distance, it’s like time is standing still.

Jumping off the pier into the bluest, clearest (non-crocodile-infested) waters is a refreshing break from the heat. The water is the perfect temperature, rejuvenating but not too cold, and so clear you can see to the bottom of the lake without the sting of salt in your eyes. The water is very calm — no waves or tides. There are more than 350 fish species, 250 of which are rare cichlids, most of which can only be found in Lake Tanganyika.

Located an hour’s drive from the capital city, Bujumbura, this idyllic area is sheltered from the political instability that has dragged on since April 2015, when the country’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, clung to power for a third term, defying the country’s constitution. Still, things have improved and tourists are returning. “This year, the political situation has been very calm, good for our business and we are getting back on our feet,” says Joseph Furaha, Blue Bay’s executive manager. By 2016, most international tourists had stopped visiting Burundi, but political and constitutional solutions are being sought and there has been a reduction in protests. Most foreign nationals still need to apply for visas before arriving in Bujumbura; check with authorities before planning a visit.

Check out my full article for Ozy here.

Alone time in Tokyo - Harajuku, Meiji shrine, Akihabara, Roppongi

Tokyo had revealed to me just how exhausted I was after all our crazy backpacking. I was almost never able to make it for any of our morning group plans in Tokyo. All I wanted to do was sleep, sleep and sleep some more. I recall Mouna asking me, “Did you come to Japan to sleep?” Death..My friend has a way with words. So I took my Tokyo trip into my own hands and decided that I was not going to let this be an expensive sleeping trip, but really take advantage of the fact that I was in Tokyo – Tokyo of all amazing places with Natsuno as our fabulous tour guide, and I was going to explore the city.

I spent a few days wandering around Harajuku – the home of Tokyo street fashion. A long walk down Takeshita street – revealed lots of fascinating and amusing people and shops.

I spent a lovely afternoon visiting the Meiji shrine – Tokyo’s most famous Shinto shrine dedicated to the late 19th century emperor who opened Japan to the West. The shrine is dedicated to the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. In the Edo Period (1603-1867), the site had belonged to the Kato family and Ii family, both feudal lord families. In the Meiji era, the shrine was built in 1920 at the site and the inner garden – Yoyogi garden.

I marveled at the 40 foot high gate at the entrance to the 200 acre park Meiji shrine is in. The gate is made of 1500 year old cypress…..Japan must have the most polite termites….you’re telling me wood can survive that long?

I wondered about the hundreds of wine barrels near the shrine. Turns out that Emperor Meiji who had embraced western culture, was a lover of wine and particularly loved wine from the wineries in Burgundy.

When I finally got to the shrine, I enjoyed the tranquility of it. It was very understated compared to Akasuka shrine that I had visited only a few days back. Everything was more moderate. There was the budhaa with the two angry genies next to him to chase away evil spirits. There was a little place where coins were dropped into for good luck. There was smoke and incense.  

I also spent half a day at Akihabara – the gadget/tech part of Tokyo.

In the evening me and my roomies walked to roppongi hills – a really popular area with great restaurants, an amazing club scene etc. and enjoyed a calm dinner in a really great restaurant before walking back home and calling it a night.   

Picnic at Yoyogi park and finding platform 9 and three quarters in Tokyo

After the crazy party night, everything was difficult – including waking up. I finally dragged myself out of bed to go to Natsuno’s annual giant party at Yoyogi park. I was almost at the park when I got a message that this was our last opportunity to go get anything we had left behind at the temple we slept at before our cross-country Japan trip had started. I have to confess that I left around 2kgs of earrings, necklaces and rings because I realized that I would hate myself within a few days of backpacking.

We all have our addictions....

I took the train to the temple to get my stuff. Finally, I made it to Yoyogi park and it was lovely. Hundreds of Natsuno’s friends from everywhere round the world, eating, drinking and making merry. We were at the park till 8:30pm.

Mouna and I finally left to get to our Airbnb. We had been warned about train stations in Tokyo and how you can get lost in them for life, but we had not taken these warnings seriously. In the train station next to our home, we had very detailed instructions on how to get out and it took 15 minutes each time from getting off the train to actually getting out of the train station. Lazy and tired as we were, when we saw an elevator, we decided to take it up?

How difficult can it be to get to our exit from where the elevator takes us?

That’s how difficult.

We got out and decided to try googlemaps as nothing looked familiar. How huge is this train station? Are we even still in Tokyo? Googlemaps directions read as follows, “Go straight. Get into the elevator…followed by lots of other directions.”

We ignored this – surely we won’t have to get back into the train station to find our home? We can’t be that far. After walking around for half an hour and having no luck, we decided to go back into the elevator and follow the directions we had initially been trying to avoid…the one we took every time that took 15 minutes for us to get out of the train station.

You would not believe it….the elevator that had brought us out of the train station, would not take us back down to exactly where it had brought us from. In short, we would never find Exit 2 – the exit that would get us home.

Did we imagine that we had been in that elevator before? We got so desperate that we just took the elevator back to the street. By this time we were so hungry and frustrated. We got into a restaurant and had dinner as we brainstormed on how we were going to avoid homelessness that evening.

Finally, we came up with a plan, “Let’s take any train back to roppongi, take the train back..and just follow the directions that we always used before. None of this..I’m too lazy to walk 15 minutes out of the train station business and using magical elevators that take you nowhere.”

At that very moment, hours later – we finally saw a sign for Exit 2. Mouna and I almost kissed the ground.

Freedom at last!

First public bath in Japan, zen meditation at the temple and sleeping in the temple

I had been fascinated with the concept of onsens/public baths since the first time I heard about them. You’re telling me everyone just gets naked and bathes together? If I was going to get into a public bath in Japan, it was definitely going to be with mirozinjapan- that way in case of any staring, the stares would be shared. In the words of my lovely Senegalese friend, “Yeah. Everyone is naked, but what if this is the first time they are seeing a black butt?” It was an important point to consider – you could all be naked, but some of you might be more of a novelty than others:-). My other friend did have some interesting concerns, “You know in Senegalese culture it’s considered bad luck to see someone’s butts. I don’t know if I am ready for all this bad luck.”

After the tea ceremony we all dressed up in kimonos and did amusing photo shoots. In our attempts to look dainty and demure as the Japanese ladies who had led us through the tea ceremony, we sometimes ended up having pics that made us look like sheep about to get slaughtered. FAIL.

Natsuno had managed to get media to join us for the day. They were fascinated about this group of 18 or so mirozinjapan who were traveling together and wanted to hear about our first impressions of Japan. Later we sat with Jokan – our monk friend, drank tea and chatted a lot about his path to becoming a monk. He was so interesting and calm. We all enjoyed being with him.

We walked half an hour away for dinner at a local restaurant. Before getting in to the restaurant, we took off our shoes. This would become the norm in most of the restaurants we went to in Japan. I found it strangely calming – as if you were entering an African home and had to take off your shoes before stepping on the carpet. It made the restaurants seem more intimate – like someone’s house rather than a hotel. The dinner was delicious and we had yummy sake after that. Gift giving was very big in Japan and Natsuno had reminded us to bring enough trinkets to give as gifts as everyone else would alsobe giving us gifts. We were each given delicious boxes of wafers and in return we gave an assortment of our gifts that represented the diversity of countries we represented. After dinner we walked back to the temple and picked our bath essentials. We got to the public bath house. We walked into a giant room (women-only) where a few naked women were sitting on green buckets soaping themselves. We followed suit – soaped ourselves sitting on the green buckets – still not sure why this has to be done seated. (Maybe it's also bad luck in Japanese culture to moon people?) We rinsed off a bit then jumped into the giant bathtub. I believe that the bath had been set up to boil lobsters – cause that water temperature. I was only able to stay inside for five minutes before I started to fear for my life. I got out of the bath and had to drink lots of water to rehydrate. We wore our pyjamas at the bath house and walked back to the temple in our pjs. We got to the temple – made our futons for sleeping then proceeded upstairs for a session of zen meditation. It was quite relaxing. I believe most people were already half asleep five minutes in – after our long day. It was quite hilarious when in the midst of chanting, the monk hit the gong. Some people almost fell off their seats as they were already drifting off to sleep. We slept at 12:30am and were up by 4:30am for an adventure filled day that would start off with eating the freshest sushi and sashimi at Tsukiju fish market.

Geneva - partying and hadron colliders

Geneva made it into our itinerary because one of my closest friends lives there and another great friend was also based in Geneva at the point. These are my ride-or-die friends who always come visit whenever i'm in the continent - mostly Germany. They had actually joined for part of Oktoberfest too this time. My main friend in Geneva actually came to surprise me for my 30th birthday - all the way in Nairobi. Imagine that - going to open the gate and finding Pattiko there - all the way from Geneva to visit for my 30th. I love you Patti and Constantinos!

We left Venice in the afternoon and got to Geneva in the evening. We were instantly picked up by our friends, they took us to drop our bags and off we went clubbing. It was a fun Friday. Despite our exhaustion and sleepiness we had a blast - two of those in our group - The Reluctant and The BARacuda even danced on stage. Geneva was expensive. I remember each drink was around 25 Swiss Francs/USD. 

Saturday morning we woke up a bit more refreshed. My other friend - Constantinos - also a friend from my university days in Boston - is a nuclear physicist......Yes, you heard right. Nuclear physicist [name dropping alert]. He took us to his workplace -  The European Organization for Nuclear Research - CERN. This was a few months after the Higgs Boson particle had been discovered by CERN scientists. Constantinos told us the coolest stories about how lectures had been given at CERN shortly after the discovery and the lines to get in were even longer than lines at famous rock concerts. CERN houses the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world! Yes, we were nerding out at CERN and it was lovely - especially when you are being given an insider tour. 

We spent the rest of the day walking around Geneva then had dinner at an Italian place called Luigi's. Later on we went clubbing with our friends and their friends. 

This was our Geneva experience - great friends, great memories.

Venice with the girls!

We left Rome for Venice at noon and got to Venice around 5pm. Arriving in Venice is magical. My first time in Venice was in 2006 and I actually shed tears - because of how beautiful it was and how different it was for me from 2 years before that (when I had gone through a really rough patch.) I felt so grateful to be in this magic place. We were staying in a guest house (Villa Stella in Lido) a bit far from the main part of Venice - St. Marco, but it was a lovely place......and affordable:-)

We got off the boat close to our place, but were not sure how exactly to get to our guesthouse. We asked an older lady for directions and the sweet woman almost drove us there. The only challenge was there were 6 of us and we each had huge backpacks....This was not going to work out. I was really touched though - this woman was going to let 6 strangers into her car? We dropped our bags at the hostel and took a boat back to St Marco's square for dinner. It was quite funny because the restaurant was right by the water - dimly lit and the restaurant was full of couples.....likely on honeymoon. I have to confess that at that moment - I really wanted a boo - if for nothing else, just to kiss by the water and whisper sweet nothings about everlasting love to each other - in that magical place. Venice is a city for lovers.

We enjoyed our romantic dinner for 6 though. We had some great laughs. I would not trade my friends in for anything. 

The following day, we spent all afternoon at St. Marco's taking in the magic that is Venice. 

In the late afternoon, we left for Geneva. 

**Excerpt from my 2006 emotional moment in St Marco square**

Oh back to Venice . So I am now sitting in the train watching the lovely scenery outside. Suddenly the train is on a bridge and the only thing below us is the Adriatic Sea (the name of the Mediterranean sea in the East of Italy.) It was so amazing. The sea was sparkling in the morning sun, and I felt this warm glow in my heart. It was soooooo beautiful. Arriving in Venice was so sooooo soooooooo one of those moments you can never forget in your life. Venice can truly not be described in words or pictures. I still find it hard to believe I saw such beauty. The whole city is right on the water. There are no buses, roads or taxis in the main part of Venice only boats, gondolas (the lovely narrow boats from ancient times), canals and very very narrow streets.Venice’s beauty is made more spectacular and fragile by the fact that the city has flooded 300 times in the past 10 years. One day there might be no more Venice . I really mean the buildings are right in the water. I honestly don’t know how the city was built. I saw someone get off their boat and jump into this huge building. The door of the building was only 2feet above the water, and the whole foundation was under water. Truly a marvel. I hopped into boat  ie bus no.1 (5 euros) – they call the commuter boats,buses- and traveled half an hour to St. Marco’s square which is the most famous part of Venice. The whole journey there was spell binding, and I kept on expecting to wake up. I got to St. Marco and passed all these traders selling all this carnival costumes/masks and swore to myself that the next time I come to Venice it will be during carnival ball. At St.Marco’s square I went to the famous St. Marco basilica. It was just toooooo much to take in. The whole beauty of the place. The whole magic of Venice . I was now beginning to feel overwhelmed. The basilica is really magical, and the symbolic sculptures on it were too many for me to really take in. The lion of Venice . Standing there in the middle of St. Marco’s square a single tear dropped down my cheek. It could have been the acid water affecting my eye sight, but it was not. I believe it was just the joy of being in Venice . The joy of seeing a place I had only read of in books. The whole feeling that God, Fate and Fortune wanted me to be in this exact spot at this exact moment of time. The fact that life is so unpredictable. The fact that a year ago I would not have dreamed of myself being in Venice , breathing in the cool ocean breeze, standing in a place of such historical significance. Just the feeling that this must have been a vital point in my life…..one which I will probably never fully understand. But even sitting here writing this email, yet more tears of joy roll down my cheek. There is beauty in this world. Beauty that is capable of evoking such strong emotions in someone’s heart. Standing in St. Marco’s square I felt so happy to be such a small small tiny fragment in this big big world. Standing there in St. Marco’s square filled me with wanderlust- a feeling that there is so much out there in the world to see. It made me make a vow never to pass up an opportunity to travel anywhere – Africa , Asia , Australia etc. There is so much for one to see that one could never know until they see it.

About that time in Barcelona when we went to an all-you-can-drink Australian pub

There are few things as dangerous as an open bar. Commonsense out, greed in. That is exactly what happened to us in Stoke pub in Barcelona. The hostel gave us a card with all the must-do things in Barcelona and one was to go to an Australian pub with 10 Euros all you can drink beer or sangria for what they called "power hour." As much sangria and beer as you want for an hour. We did the math and figured out this would be a nice cheap plan - go drink at Stoke then not need to buy any drinks for the rest of the night.  

We got to Stoke at a respectable hour - around 5pm. We did the math. If a glass of sangria or beer costs 3.30 Euros, then to break even we need to have at least 3 glasses to break even. But we are Kenyans. Do you think we win all those olympic medals by doing the bare minimum? Of course not! We were going to do even better than break even - we were going for gold. We had to pick whether to go with Beer or Sangria. It was decided by our small committee that sangria was more bang for our buck - how much beer can one realistically drink in an hour - before getting bloated.....How that hour began and how it ended are like night and day. We got in as proper cultured ladies and pretty soon we were yelling at the top of our voices.  

They started by bringing us 2 pitchers of sangria. There were 6 of us. When we finished our pitchers, there was a bell we were to ring for them to refill. Towards the end of that power hour, we had some frantic bell ringing courtesy of The BARacuda. We also had some erratic chugging, some crazy pouring - that resulted in more sangria on the table than in the glasses. There was one casualty of the power hour - whose partying came to an abrupt end after the hour. She found herself home by 7pm. 

The rest though - we left Stoke and moved to the next place. A bar that had live music, wine and shots for a flat fee of 5 Euros. I'm still not quite sure how we managed to have more drinks. Later in the night, we went to a night club called Jamboree where we danced and danced and danced. We got home at 6am. 

Barcelona was clearly our type of city.

Oh....you're wondering. Did we break even at Stoke? Hell, we bankrupt the place:-)

Leaving Paris for Barcelona

It was long journey to the train station. I was unsettled. I had a horrible toothache, had slept 2 hours, was really getting tired of Paris and we had no train tickets to leave - not for lack of trying. We had gone to the train station almost daily only to be told we couldn't get tickets. We got to the train station and I tried again to book tickets. I had the rest wait by a train that we would hopefully get on. I had around an hour or so before that train was to leave - plenty of time, right? Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. There were long queues, half of the booths had no one working in them, when I finally got to the counter we had communication issues and a rude teller to boot. Her computer was slow and kept on freezing. Her printer jammed when she was to print my ticket. There were 5 of us, but she could only find 2 seats to reserve. I took them! I heard them announcing my train's departure. I ran like a crazy person. I jumped into the train just as the doors were closing. I knew my friends must have done the logical thing and entered the train too. I finally found them. It was a long journey - we changed trains 3 times because of our ticket-less situation. To make matters worse, we had each parted with 35 Euros to secure the few tickets we were able to. On most other routes, we had been able to use our Eurail passes without having to pay anything additional. This was not the case for trains leaving or getting into Paris. 

We finally got to Barcelona in the evening. We were extremely happy to no longer be in Paris! We walked to the beach and went to a bar near our hostel in the evening. It was a lovely hostel. Be Dream hostel at Pep Ventura train station. In a complete contrast to Paris, everyone we met was kind, helpful and friendly. Things were looking up again. 

Berlin city tour

It started in the Parisian square which is in the middle of the city. The square got it's name back in the 1500s or so. The Swedes had poisoned the city's water with sewage and arsenic, and had killed off most of the population (who knew the hedonistic Swedes could be this bad:-) The rotting bodies on the streets had caused a plague that had pretty much wiped out all of  Berlin's population. The Kaiser pleaded with France to send 5000 engineers, builders etc to repopulate the city. The French did this, and that's why they got this place named after their capital. They also got a cathedral built for them. Our next stop was Brandenburg Tor which is this huge victory gate in the Parisian square. On top of the gate is a statue of the female protector of Berlin sitting on a horse-ridden chariot. She looks menacingly at the French embassy which is near the Tor. This was all intentional as Germany has had loads of beef with France in the past centuries.

After this we went to the controversial Holocaust Memorial which is in the middle of the city too, and was built in the 1990s. It has a controversial name, "Holocaust Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe." I thought the name was appropriate though because to use any sort of euphemism to describe the Holocaust or any other genocide would be to undermine the suffering of those who died. It is also controversial because it has no names. It is just a labyrinth of different sized square rocks. Some are only a foot high while others go up to 20 feet or so. It takes around three minutes to walk from one side to the other if one chooses a straight path. I kind of thought that the monument was interesting and open to many sorts of interpretations. The main interpretation is that the small pillars represent things considered harmless. Such things include anti-semitic jokes, racist thoughts etc. Such "harmless" things eventually lead us to the largest pillars which include ethnic cleansing, torture, rape etc. My own interpretation was that the ambiguity of the monument was necessary. 'With genocides so much is unknown. Perhaps the different heights of the pillars represent the different ages of the dead. Perhaps the ambiguity mirrors the ambiguity of genocide. What  counts as genocide? This is the question the international community was pondering for a while as hundreds of thousands died in Rwanda. Darfur - is that genocide or not? Perhaps we never know until it is all over, and we can tabulate the results. This doesn't help those undergoing it though. As I walked through the monument I didn't expect to get as strongly affected as I did. The first minute I was still towering over the pillars. After this the pillars started getting higher, and I felt as if my path was getting narrower. The fact that I could not see around me or above me made me fear that I would get to the end and not be able to get out. My breathing started getting faster, my heart started pounding and my steps were faster. I was filled with fear, desperation and was feeling claustrophobic. One actually had the scary feeling of entrapment. I hurried and finally got to the end and quickly stepped into fresh air, sunlight and freedom. I was actually still shaking and taking deep breaths of air as if I had thought I would never get out. Three minutes.

After this we went to Hitler's old bunker which was now just an empty parking lot. The Government had intentionally left this place unmarked. They feared that if they made it an official site then it might be a meeting ground for neo-nazis or that Hitler would be getting the commemoration he definitely didn't deserve. The tour guide told us that in his day, Hitler used to be a sex symbol and women would faint just by touching his coat. I was really surprised because even if we momentarily ignored his personality, homeboy was not a good looking fella at all. Apparently he lived in a bomb shelter underground, and when he knew he was going to be captured- he poisoned his dog, his lover and then himself. As soon as his guards found him- they took a cigarette break. He apparently did not allow them to smoke while he lived. Their bodies were taken by the Soviets, burned and then thrown into the river so that he may never have a resting place. The fact that he would now be 120 rubbishes any rumors going around about him being spotted with 2pac and Biggie in Cuba sipping on some crystal.

After this our next stop was some old Nazi buildings which had then been taken over by the Soviets and still contained all the pro-communist propaganda. Posters of happy children and joyful peasants were all around to perpetuate the myth that communism would lead to progress. We then walked through many other parts of Berlin, and I just got more and more fascinated with the city. I had been here in 2001 and 2006, but I felt like this was the first time. Everything that could be said about Berlin, the exact opposite would be true too. There were this huge skyscrapers, but there were also this bombed out unrestored buildings. There were this huge HP and coke ads, but there were also this ancient castles, cathedrals and libraries. It felt like such a changing place. Our tour lasted 3 hours. 

How I almost gave up the ghost, gorilla trekking in the mountains

Definitely longer blog posts coming up, but quick highlights on gorilla trekking a few months back in Bwindi impenetrable forest in Southern Uganda  - I would likely not have gone if I had known just how tough it was going to be:-)

I still remember a naive Thekenyanexplorer asking the guide in the beginning "How steep can it get?" Haaaaaa! Jokes! We spent the first hour hiking up a major steep path that can only be described as Mount Longonot. Turns out this was the path that was to eventually bring us into "the impenetrable forest." Yaaaaani, this was not even the real trek yet. Having panted my life away I imagined that the gorillas would be so kind as to avail themselves to a nearby part of the forest - you know.....kind of meet us halfway....Nothing....We then spent the next hour in the forest mostly uphill with some few blessed moments of going downhill (I might not have considered the downhill parts a blessing if I had realized that we would be using the same exact path going back i.e. this would be an uphill path on our way back.) After an hour of trudging through the forest (which was muddy and slippery as it had rained the previous night,) I imagined that we must be really close to the gorillas. One of my colleagues asked how much longer and the guard said "In the next hour, we will be with the gorillas." I almost flung myself on the ground and started crying. An hour?? I can barely put one foot in front of the other....Can I just stay here and wait for you guys? And photoshop myself into your pics with the gorillas?

Then our guide talked to the tracker again and he said that we would have to cut our way through the forest to get to where the gorillas were. Armed with a sickle, our guards started cutting down vegetation in the "impenetrable forest" to get us to the gorillas. Maybe it's just me, but I always thought forests have a ground - yes, the trees might be close together, but there will surely be a ground, right? No. We were walking on air, on trees, on fallen branches, over streams, on nothingness, on everything - I fell down a minimum of 5 times - once into a hole of my height, another time I slipped on a muddy rock and was just so glad that this was saving me some effort, that I just let myself slide down 5 or 6 more muddy rocks - like I was on a water slide at Splash or something - I could not even be bothered to stand up and would have gladly slid down the mountain if there was a way to...

Finally, oh, finally that sweet moment arrived - when we got to the gorillas. The family we were tracking was amazing - 26 in total, 3 silverbacks (the male leaders), 5 or so blackbacks (younger males), 10 or so females and the rest were babies. This sounds silly, but I didn't realize how huge gorillas are. The first one we met was 225 kgs, so human in action, just stunning. To think that there are only 840 mountain gorillas remaining in the world - all of them in Rwanda, Uganda and DRC - just amazing work that the parks have done in keeping this magnificent, beautiful creatures alive for future generations to enjoy. It was so exhilarating just standing in the middle of the forest with the largest primates known to man. 

There were some hilarious/frightening moments, with 2 of the silverbacks charging at us twice and having to be stopped by the trackers who are able to mimic their sounds. We also heard the screams of a gorilla baby and saw how quickly the silverbacks went to check what was happening. One of the silverbacks also started pounding his chest as he retreated from us - to make sure we knew who was boss. It was really out of the world.

The next day with my aching bones, I could genuinely say that it was worth every bit of physical pain to see the mountain gorillas. I thank the Kahungye gorilla family for letting us take a sneak peek into their lives, the great wardens and trackers for loving and caring for these treasures of the world, my travel companions for pushing me forward and encouraging me when all I wanted to do was give up during that journey. 

I encourage every one who can to go see the lovely mountain gorillas. East Africans, the deal is sweet for you - USD 90/person vs. USD 600 that foreigners pay:-)