Democratic Republic of Congo is among the most respected tourist destination countries with the lowest tourist expenses including being the only country with the cheapest gorilla permits at only $ 400 USD per person per trek, we visited the Eco Tours Congo website which is under the management of Nature Adventure Africa Safaris Limited which operates from Uganda but can reach all the African continent.
This is where we got the relevant content of the Virunga national park, the park was founded in 1925 by King Albert I of Belgium and was originally given his namesake, Albert National Park. Parc Albert was the first national park to be established on the continent of Africa, largely from the tireless lobbying of an American biologist, Carl Akeley, who committed his life to the protection of Virunga landscapes, and who subsequently died and was buried in the Park.
It was founded primarily to protect the mountain gorillas living in the forests of the Virunga Massif. Parc Albert was later expanded northward to include the Rwindi Plains, Lake Edward and the “Mountains of the Moon”. The park was renamed Virunga National Park in 1969. This is one of the historical backgrounds that inspired us to pay a visit to this country such that we could also have a story to tell to our grand sons and daughters about this park of memories.
We contacted Moses using their info email and he gave us more details including the activities that we could do after enjoying the gorilla trek from Virunga National Park, being curious is part of our lives, we decided to pay for the gorilla permits since we were six and all the expenses as Moses had calculated for us. We were picked from Kigali international airport, but we couldn’t do any activity that day other than having a 3hour tour to Kigali city.
In the afternoon we were taken to Bukima tented camps a place we reached towards night due to the 40km/hr restrictions in this country as its too hilly, some of my colleagues were feeling thirsty and therefore they decided to have a visit to the bar that is with the Camp to load something on their heads before they slept. Me i resorted to sodas since my religion doesn’t allow me to take beers, in the evening we were given supper and after we went for a shower at the available bathrooms.
On the second day, Nsubuga our guide at the same time who acted as our driver came for us, we were taken to Kibati patrol post where we met the rangers who were to lead us into the activity, at exactly 8am we started our trek but this wasn’t easy as we had to pass over the hills up to when we came across the gorillas that we were all waiting to see how they were looking, one of my colleagues got scared as the biggest gorilla wanted to come near her, but we were told not to get scared, we staged in one position up to when it went back to its group.
We took some photos for remembrance but everyone was left nodding heads because of what we saw, these are one of the largest apes we luck from our home country, in the evening, we crossed through some valleys where we met the golden monkey plus the exciting mountain Nyiragongo with its exciting features. On the third day we left the park and we went back to the airport for our departure but we suggested to come back for Mountain Nyiragongo climbing since it gave us a wonderful inspiration over the night.
