I’m in Rwanda to visit family. Some of my closest family, in fact. True, we’ve been estranged for a few million years, but DNA is thicker than water, right? So who cares if I find their manners a little rustic (“We tend to wash our hands after doing that in Britain, actually”) or they think I’ve taken on airs now I live in the big city (“Ooh, get him, walking on two legs!”).
Yes, these guys (OK, these gorillas) are great apes. But then so, say scientists, are humans. We share 98 per cent of our genetic material – and, indeed, a sense of humour (gorillas have been observed laughing when somebody falls over). If nothing else, I thought as I booked my flight, we can all have a giggle together over that clip on my phone of Del Boy leaning on the bar…
The gorillas, in fact, are screen stars themselves, comprehensively stealing the show in BBC2’s Silverback this week. The documentary was filmed at Kahuzi-Biega National Park, in Democratic Republic of the Congo – but thanks to a combination of political instability and crime, Rwanda is a much safer bet. And a beautiful one, too. Leaving the capital, Kigali, I find an Africa I didn’t expect. Misty, mountainous Rwanda is so lush, the place seems to have been painted with an undercoat of vivid green, overlaid only occasionally with sploshes of other colours: rust red-stone houses, cornflower-blue churches, and corn cobs left to dry on the roofs of houses, turning fiery gold in the setting sun. Up in Volcanoes National Park, a few hours’ drive away, giant lilies scent the air, just the sweet side of sickly, while I sit on my veranda at stylish, every-whim-catered-for Gorilla’s Nest (oneandonlyresorts.com/gorillas-nest) and watch iridescent hummingbirds shimmering blue-purple-green beside fireengine-red flowers.
Next morning, it’s up at dawn and off to the Park’s HQ to meet our guide and begin our trek. It can take anything between 20 minutes and three hours to reach the gorillas, but it’s always uphill, and it’s always through jungle. On this occasion it’s thick, wet jungle, too, and we slog our way through the under- and overgrowth along buffalo tracks sometimes ankle-deep in mud and head-high in wet ferns. After an hour, we emerge into a clearing to see golden monkeys – dazzlingly blonde little bamboo-dwellers, endemic to Rwanda. Elsewhere, they’d be top of the bill, but here they’re merely the support act, and we’re soon walking again.
Another half-hour, and then at last the bowel movement we’ve all been waiting for: our guide has found fresh gorilla poo. We inch around the corner, and there – a leg’s length away – is a gorilla breast-feeding her four-month-old baby. Beyond her are another ten or so of these massive beasts – the dominant silverback male may be 32 stone, with arms like tree-trunks – but none are doing anything more intimidating than a spot of loafing. As if to confirm their reputation for gentleness, the new mother looks up at us, with the polite expectancy of a barista when you approach the coffee bar. But she swiftly turns her gaze back upon her baby, and her look softens visibly.
Reading human emotions into the big, familiar-looking eyes of these animals is irresistible, and I hear Animal Magic’s Johnny Morris narrating a gorilla soap opera constantly in my mind – especially when the two-year-old starts running around, poking his elders in their stomachs and tickling them with eucalyptus leaves. Or when the nine month-old clambers into his mother’s embrace and burrows his face into her armpit until the rain stops. Or when two of the females theatrically turn their backs on a third. Or when the grumpy-looking male who’s been sitting with his arms crossed in the rain, rolls onto his back, stretching and grinning and shielding his eyes with a hand when the sun emerges.
Close kin? Easily first cousins, the kind you mostly see at Christmas. Indeed, the scene before me – everyone loafing around, playing, napping, bickering, noshing – could have been unspooling in any home in Britain last month, between the King’s speech and EastEnders.
They’re certainly close enough for us to find them cute (we all “ahh” in unison when the little ones play around us with dewdrops on their curls and mischief on their minds). But they’re wild enough, too, for us to find them properly awesome (our jaws fall in unison when the silverback beats his chest).
It’s hard to wrench myself from these sights for even a second, but each time I look beside me, I see eight pairs of human eyes wide with wonder, and eight faces alight with huge smiles. Our allowed hour passes in what feels like moments; but as we leave I sneak one last glance at Mum, and notice just the same look of gentle reproach my own mother dishes out on these occasions (“ You’re going already? When will you come round next?”). And – while I can’t always say this is true at my own mum’s place – I’m thinking I really don’t want to leave it too long. ED GRENBY
I’m in Rwanda to visit family. Some of my closest family, in fact. True, we’ve been estranged for a few million years, but DNA is thicker than water, right? So who cares if I find their manners a little rustic (“We tend to wash our hands after doing that in Britain, actually”) or they think I’ve taken on airs now I live in the big city (“Ooh, get him, walking on two legs!”).