By Barbara Levine
Written in 2023
And there we were, you wouldn't believe it!
We thought we were going to die!
We were face-to-face with a humongous 550-pound Silverback gorilla, who was charging directly at us and roaring as he came!
We were warned by our guide to expect this. He taught us to slowly lower ourselves to the ground, keep quiet, make no sudden moves, and never point at or look at the Silverback ā gorillas view this as aggressive behavior! And NEVER EVER turn around and run!
Try to do that in the face of a charging gorilla!
This is how my memory recalls these events on the first day we trekked up through the steep jungle terrain to find the gorillas in Zaire in October 1989. But according to my trip diaries and after checking with Stan, I find that my memories are not correct!
Read on to discover the actual story of our gorilla adventures in Zaire.
Gorillas
Few people have the opportunity to view gorillas at close range in the wild. Gorilla trekking is a chance to commune with these shy, rare and wonderful giants in their own environment.
As the British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author David Attenborough has said: āThere is more meaning and understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know.ā
Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa.
Gorillas are primarily found in two areas of Central Africa (the dark blue area of Africa on the map to the right):
ā¢ The Eastern gorillas (found in the eastern side of Central Africa), and
ā¢ The Western Lowland gorillas (found in the western area of Central Africa).
The Eastern gorillas are divided into two groups:
ā¢ The Mountain gorillas inhabit the cloud forests of the Virunga Mountains ranging in altitude from 7,000 to 14,000 feet. These are a chain of volcanoes in East Central Africa, along the junction of the borders of Rwanda, Zaire* and Uganda. There is another population of Mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
* Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We were there in 1989 when it's name was Zaire.
ā¢ The Eastern Lowland gorillas are located on the slopes of the Kahuzi Biega Volcanoes in eastern Zaire.
The Eastern gorilla is distinguished from the Western gorilla by darker fur color and some other minor morphological differences.
The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest relatives of humans after chimpanzees and bonobos.*
* Bonobos and chimpanzees look very similar and both share 98.7% of their DNA with humansāmaking the two species our closest living relatives. Bonobos are usually a bit smaller, leaner and darker than chimpanzees. Their society is also differentābonobo groups tend to be more peaceful and are led by females.
Gorillas are the worldās largest living primates, reaching heights ranging between four to six feet, weights between 220 to 600 pounds, and arm spans up to 8.5 feet, depending on species and sex.
Gorillas usually live 35-40 years in the wild. The oldest known gorilla ever is a female named Fatou (born in 1957), who has been in a Berlin zoo since 1959, and is still alive today in 2022 at the advanced age of 65 years.
Fatou in 2020 at age 63
Gorillas tend to live in families, with the leader called a Silverback.*
* A Silverback is a mature male gorilla with silver saddles across his back and hips.
The Silverback is responsible for protecting and leading a troop of five to 30 mountain gorillas on where to migrate, forage for food, and even rest.
Preface
In October 1989, Stan and I went on a month-long safari in several areas of Africa, with Abercrombie & Kent (A&K). We started with 22 days in Kenya, followed by five days in Rwanda and Zaire. This was our first of three trips to Africa, the others occurring in 2003 and 2014 (both the subjects of future missives).
Map showing the three African countries we visited in October 1989: Kenya, Rwanda & Zaire
In addition to our safaris in several areas of Kenya (our route is shown on the map on the left), we went fishing for the Nile perch on Lake Victoria and hot-air ballooning in the Masai Mara. Our Kenyan experiences are the subject of a future missive.
After Kenya, we went on a five-day trip to Rwanda and Zaire to trek in to see gorillas. We were especially interested in seeing the Rwandan Mountain gorillas because they live in the mountains at the highest altitudes in the most difficult terrain and are the hardest to find. These Mountain gorillas live in the Virunga Mountains which are at the intersection of three African countries in the map below: Rwanda, Zaire, and Uganda.*
* While there are Mountain gorillas in two areas of Uganda, there were still many security concerns about visiting that country in 1989, and A&K didnāt offer gorilla expeditions to Uganda at that time.
In 1989, the three-year-old regime of President Yoweri Museveni achieved a measure of political stability unknown in Uganda for more than 20 years. Before Museveni seized power in 1986, deposing President Milton Obote, the country was terrorized by the brutal excesses of Idi Amin and the civil wars that followed the dictator's departure for exile in 1979. Now, many areas of the country, including the capital, were relatively safe for daily life. However, this new-found sense of stability in Uganda was a relative thing, growing out of comparisons to the violent and repressive conditions that persisted here over many years. Other less-shellshocked societies would find much to be alarmed about in the country's circumstances at that time.
Although we wanted to see the Rwandan Mountain gorillas, we discovered that Rwanda allowed only one group of eight persons a day to visit their Mountain gorilla troop, and the allotment was already filled for the week we wanted to go.
Thus, we signed up for a gorilla trek in Zaire, which allowed three groups of eight people in a day, with each group visiting a single troop of gorillas. We arranged to trek in on two separate days to see two different troops.
Our trip to Zaire involved staying in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, for a day on each end. This was fine with us because we were interested in visiting that country also.
We also soon discovered that we will really be visiting the Eastern Lowland gorillas in the Kahuzi Biega Volcanoes in Zaire, and not the Mountain gorillas in the Virunga Volcanoes there, as we had hoped for.
Trip Diary
The following pages consist of my diary that I wrote during the week of October 20-26, 1989, during our African gorilla trekking trip to Rwanda and Zaire, augmented by photographs taken by Stan (I was busy shooting video).
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Friday, October 20 ā Masai Mara to Nairobi, Kenya to Kigali, Rwanda
ā¢ Breakfast from 7:00-8:30 am outdoors in the Masai Mara. At 8:30, we board the land rovers for the last time and head for the airstrip to catch our plane for Nairobi.
ā¢ Arrived back at the Nairobi Safari Club at 10:30 am. Went for a short walk to the center of town ā nothing was open because it is a holiday celebrating the release of the political prisoners just before Kenyaās freedom. Back to the hotel at 11:20 am. We picked up the spare room key from Meme (our guide) to freshen up for the flight. The āspare roomā was like a presidential suite with a huge living room with a bar, guest bathroom, large bedroom, master bath with sunken jacuzzi tub, etc. Stan took a few minutes to take a shower. Then down to the restaurant for a quick bite of lunch. We were served at 11:55 am, and the driver arrived at 12:00 pm to take us to the airport and waited for us until we finished eating.
ā¢ After a two-hour wait at the Kenyatta International Airport, we boarded a wide-bodied jet for a nice one-hour flight to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. There is a one-hour time change between Kenya and Rwanda. Arrived at the Umubano Meridien Hotel in Kigali and were in our room by 4:15 pm.
ā¢ We were told that we had a 5 pm meeting with the A&K representative, but found out at that time that it wasnāt until 6:30. They are really not very organized here ā everything takes a long time. Nairobi seemed very civilized compared to here, even though this city itself looks more modern from what weāve seen of it. The hotel is certainly modern, though it is a long way from the city center, and it seems deserted as if no one else is around.
ā¢ At 6:30 pm, we did have our meeting with A&K. It was held in the lounge which had several other groups of people talking, so it was extremely hard to hear what A&K had to say. We had to stand right across the table from her to hear anything. Her directions were very misleading and some of the things were not well understood by the audience.
ā¢ We finally got to dinner at the hotel restaurant at 7:30 pm, but they didnāt come to take any drink orders until 8:15, and that was with our pleading. It went that way with every course. The food was good, but I ate so much bread waiting for it that I couldnāt eat my main course when it finally arrived at 10:30. The meal consisted of vegetable soup; huge, thick, delicious steak; spinach; French fries and three huge scoops of sherbet for dessert (which we didnāt wait for as it was getting so late and we had an early start the next morning).
ā¢ We heard more about the San Francisco earthquake* from the Santa Rosa, CA couple, Joe & Arlene, who had just arrived from Egypt where they had seen a Reuters' article.
* The 6.9-7.2 Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Central California/San Francisco Bay area three days earlier on October 17, killing 63 and injuring 3,757, and causing $6 billion in damages ($13 billion today).
Saturday, October 21 ā Kigali, Rwanda to Bukavu, Zaire
ā¢ The Air Rwanda plane which was to fly us from Kigali to the Zaire border is down for repairs today. There is no backup plane and A&K was unable to charter another plane. So we will have a 5-6 hour drive to reach Zaire. Our city tour, originally scheduled for this morning, will be postponed until Tuesday morning when we will be back in Kigali.
ā¢ They only speak French in Rwanda ā very little English. All publications are in French and we couldnāt find anything to read in English. This made it hard learn much about Rwanda and its history. The head waiter spoke some English, but it is hard to know whether we were always understood. I purchased a map of Rwanda (in French) for $10 U.S. ā I wasnāt able to find any in the U.S. and itās nice to be able to trace our route on a map.
ā¢ We woke up at 5:30 am, even though we donāt leave until 9:30. We thought that we had better allow 1Ā½ hours for breakfast or we wonāt get to eat.
ā¢ Stan went jogging and ran for a while with several school children. We were told last night not to leave the hotel at all after dark unless we went by taxi (this was true in Nairobi also). It all seems pleasant enough in the daytime. We walked around the hotel grounds and then along the dirt roads bordering the hotel.
Saturday, 10/21 -Photos taken during our walk around the hotel in the early morning;
Upper left: I am talking to a couple and several children. Upper center: A banana tree.
ā¢ We are not allowed to take any photographs here (as in Kenya) of airports, military installations, soldiers, or the President ā if he should happen to pass. In addition, here and in Zaire, it is even more strict about not taking photographs of the people. We can take general street scenes, but you do not take pictures of any people closer up without having arranged for a price to pay them. A&K told us that in Rwanda, it is sometimes overlooked if you pan your camera and zoom in on someone temporarily. But in Zaire, we must not do this as they can get very physical and take your camera and smash it!
ā¢ There are 16 people in our group going to Zaire ā we are the only ones from our safari group in Kenya. Three other couples are going gorilla trekking in Rwanda. One couple had to leave at 4:00 am this morning to be at the park border by 8 am. The other two couples will trek in Rwanda tomorrow. They will be staying in another town in Rwanda for two nights closer to the park.
ā¢ The 16 in our party include four couples and a party of seven Smith College alumni and the husband of one. The Smith College people will be together on one gorilla trek and the rest of us on another. Only eight people are allowed in to see a group of gorillas each day.
ā¢ There are three gorilla groups in the part of Zaire that our party of eight are going to trek in to see. The other three couples in our party are from Santa Rosa, CA (Joe and Arlene, near our age ā we are 48 and 52); Santa Barbara, CA (Francis and his girlfriend Virginia, ages 72 and 70); and Perth, Australia (Jack and Amy, both age 68). We are very surprised to find people this old along, as the trekking can be fairly strenuous.
ā¢ The Australian couple (Jack and Amy) are fun. Amy is very plucky ā she ordered the goat stew last night instead of the steak everyone else had. They have been to China three times ā theyāve been traveling since 1975. They own a large catering business in Perth and Jack was formerly in the medical field. I suspect that they will trek better than myself. My sprained ankle is still swollen and giving me some problems, but I hope it wonāt hamper me so that I canāt trek.
ā¢ The couple from Santa Rosa (Joe and Arlene) said that their travel agent told them that there is more chance of finding the gorillas in Zaire than in Rwanda. The Mountain gorillas in Rwanda are much higher above the park boundary than in Zaire, and it is farther to walk to find them ā also, the terrain is steeper and more difficult.
ā¢ Our A&K representative tells us that the gorillas we will see in Zaire are larger than the ones in Rwanda that Dian Fossey lived with (the large Silverbacks in Zaire get to 550 pounds, while the Rwandan Silverbacks only reach 350 pounds).
ā¢ We left the hotel in Kigali shortly after 9:30 am and drove through two-thirds of Rwanda for the rest of the day until 7:30 pm ā much longer than the 5-6 hours we were told. The road was in excellent condition. We had a pleasant lunch at a āhotelā dining room in a town along the way. This was evidently the best place to eat on our journey, but it was far below the standards we Americans have come to expect. After lunch, we stopped at a new museum outside of the town which was beautiful and modern. We spent a half hour going through it ā there were displays on the history of the country and the people and how they lived.
ā¢ We drove on through the afternoon, stopping once to look at some storks in a tree and once to stretch our legs and view the scenery.
Saturday, 10/21: - Photos taken on our drive through Rwanda:
Upper left: I was particularly impressed with how the women carry their burdens on their heads.
Lower right: Several storks and their nests in a tree.
Saturday, 10/21 - More photos taken on our drive through Rwanda:
Upper left: Terraced hillsides ā every portion of the land is put to use.
Upper right: A boy carrying a heavy load of cuttings up a steep bank
Lower right: Sunset over the far mountains toward the end of the day.
ā¢ Near dusk, it started to drizzle and we were heading down out of the mountains on a steep and windy road. We rounded a bend and almost rear-ended a van upside-down in our lane. We stopped and our driver got out to offer assistance. The driver of the van was outside of it and walking around, but he made no effort to put out flares or ensure that other vehicles didnāt crash into him. There were still people inside the van, injured or dead. Our driver was told that help was on the way, so we managed to maneuver around the van and continue on our way. We learned later that five had died.
ā¢ When we reached the Zaire border, it was dark and drizzly, and we were all tired, hungry, and strained from the accident. We all had to get out and wait in line to fill out the paperwork to enter the country. The border setting left much to be desired.
ā¢ We reached the Riviera Hotel in Bukavu about 7:30 pm and were shown to our rooms. It was supposed to be a 3-star hotel, but the rooms and lobby were equivalent to a 1-star.
Sunday, October 22 ā Gorilla Day 1 in Zaire
ā¢ We had a wonderful view of Lake Kivu from our hotel room. We left the hotel shortly after 7:00 am with the other three couples after an early breakfast in the breakfast room, which was small and hard to find a seat. Tracing the lake's edge as our van drove, we could see the once elaborate and stately homes maintained by wealthy Belgians and the busy market life of Bukavu.
Sunday, 10/22 - Bukavu, Zaire: View of Lake Kivu from our hotel room
ā¢ We had a 45-minute ride to drive the 14 miles to the entrance to the Parc National du Kahuzi Biega. The scenery on the ride was beautiful ā through Bukavu, along Lake Kivu and up into the mountains.
Sunday, 10/22 - Bukavu, Zaire: Local transportation
Sunday, 10/22 - Scenes in Bukavu, Zaire, and on the drive to see the mountain gorillas on our first trek:
Upper left: A fishing boat on Lake Kivu.
Upper right: A ZaĆÆroise woman with a "porcupine" hairstyle walking with two men. Her hairstyle looks extremely uncomfortable, but is, nonetheless, quite fascinating.
Lower left: Busy market street in Bukavu.
Lower right: A ferry boat on Lake Kivu.
ā¢ At the Park entrance, we all had to register and A&K paid the Park entrance fee. Then our guide and three trackers crowded into our van with us for a 10-minute ride, where we parked at the side of the road which ran through the rain forest. The air in the van was very stifling during this ride due to the strong body odor of the natives!
ā¢ We had a relatively easy 45-minute walk on the slopes of the Kahuzi Biega Volcanoes before we saw our first gorilla. The guide and trackers go in to visit the same group of gorillas each day, thus they are very familiar with them and they know where they were last seen the day before.
ā¢ Each gorilla group travels to a different place every day in search of food, and the trackers have to look for the spoor and track it to find them. They locate signs of the animals ā their footprints, pieces of chewed mountain celery, or perhaps an abandoned nest ā and the search is on.
ā¢ The trackers hacked a pathway for us with their machetes for most of the walk, and we slithered through dense rainforest and up and down hills. We had to be careful not to trip on the vines on the ground.
Sunday, 10/22, Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire ā Start of our first gorilla trek.
Upper left: Joe and myself, followed by Virginia & Francis, and a tracker with a machete.
Upper right: John, our guide, with a tracker holding a machete.
Lower left: John with two trackers with machetes, hacking a path for us.
Lower right: A tracker, Arlene, Joe, Jack, & Stan.
ā¢ Stan and I didnāt get the word about tucking our pants legs into our socks. As a result, several fire ants* got up into our pants.
* Fire ants are the stinging ants that belong to the genus Solenopsis. Fire ants are a group of ants that are aggressive. They bite with their mouths, holding on and then stinging by injecting venom into the prey through a stinger located in their abdomen. The venom causes a burning pain at the site of bite. Since some may feel the pain of a fire, these ants are called fire ants.
We did some fast shuffling since we were standing on a fire ant nest and couldnāt move on the trail ā there were others ahead of and behind us, and there was dense rain forest on each side.
We quickly got our pants legs tucked in and spent the next half hour trying to kill the fire ants trapped inside our pants. They bit fiercely and were very hard to kill. We squeezed them hard through our pant legs, but it usually just stunned them awhile before they began to bite again.
ā¢ The walk would have been much faster, except that Francis (72 years old from Santa Barbara) was having a very difficult time, and we had to stop often and wait for him and the trailing tracker to catch up with us. His girlfriend, Virginia (age 70), wasnāt doing so well either.
ā¢ The first gorilla we saw was a youngster on a tree limb above us, and he started beating his chest with his fists.
Sunday, 10/22 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: The young two-year old in a tree right above us. He pounded his chest, imitating the older members of his group.
ā¢ Soon afterward, we saw a larger gorilla sitting in the foliage on the ground. The trackers hacked down some of the vegetation blocking him so we could get a better view. The gorilla never flinched at all when the machete chopping was going on all around him.
ā¢ We spent some time with this larger gorilla whose name is Johnny (I think after our tracker John, who was the first to habituate this gorilla group five years ago). Johnny is a five-year-old male.
Sunday, 10/22 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire ā The larger gorilla named Johnny.
ā¢ The gorilla group we found today has 24 members, including baby twins (which are extremely rare for gorillas). We only saw 8-9 of the members of this group, and only four of them up close. The rain forest is very dense and they were probably all around us, but you wouldnāt know it. Of course, we didnāt see the baby twins ā they would keep them away from us to protect them.
ā¢ Toward the end of our 40-minute stay, we got a good view of the Silverback, so-called because the older males get silver hair down the length of their backs. His name is Mayeesha. If we thought the air in the van was bad, it was nothing compared to the body odor of a Silverback! The whole forest reeked of it! The adult females have some B.O., but nothing like the Silverback, who has special glands that give off the odor.
Sunday, 10/22 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: The Silverback named Mayeesha eating a bamboo shoot.
ā¢ And what's more, unlike my memories, this Silverback did NOT come charging at us, beating his chest and roaring as he came!
ā¢ The guide and trackers only allow a 40-45 minute stay with a gorilla group each day so that the gorillas are not overly bothered. We had a very short hike back to the road (about 10 minutes) and were out by 11 am. We were driven back down to the lake where we stopped and had a picnic lunch.
Monday, October 23 ā Gorilla Day 2 in Zaire / Bukavu, Zaire to Kigali, Rwanda
ā¢ Our trackerās name today is James. It took us 35 minutes to arrive at the place where the Smith group yesterday found the gorillas (after 1Ā½ hours of trekking).
ā¢ From then on, our trackers had to cut a path for us through the growth. They lost the gorilla track and led us through a boggy swamp area where, if you made the wrong step, you went up to your ankles in mud.
ā¢ Today, we had a park guard with a rifle with us because we were in an area where there are many elephants and rhinos who readily charge. We saw elephant tracks, but fortunately no charging animals.
ā¢ We trekked for nearly two more hours after the first 35 minutes before we finally found the gorilla group. This group has 27 members. Again, the first one we saw was a young one in the trees.
Monday, 10/23 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire:
Upper left and upper right: A young five-year old gorilla.
Upper center: I am trekking with a hiking pole and my video camera, and with my pant legs tucked securely in my socks to avoid any fire ant problems.
Lower left: The park guard with a rifle to protect us from any charging elephants or rhinos.
Lower center: A big yawn from the young five-year old gorilla.
Lower right: Stan with a large gorilla lurking in the bush behind him.
ā¢ We saw a mother gorilla with a fairly young baby back through the tree branches ā they didnāt stay around for long.
Monday, 10/23 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: A mother and baby gorilla.
ā¢ We spent a long time with a gorilla named Lambchops. He allowed the tracker and two members of our party to crawl up very close to him. Stan and I were too busy filming to do so, Stan with his still camera and myself with my video camera.
Monday, 10/23 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: Our initial encounter with Lambchops.
Upper left: Stan is in the foreground while our guide and the Belgian girl are crawling up on their stomachs toward Lambchops. (A couple from Belgium joined us today in lieu of Francis & Virginia).
The other photos: Lambchops is going through his gyrations as they approach him.
ā¢ Lambchops played bouncing ball with each of their heads. He also played with the hat that the tracker had on, smelling it and shoving it back at him twice after making a grimace. (Lambchops didn't like the smell of our guide's hat, even though he had a body odor so bad that we could hardly stand to be near him.)
Monday, 10/23 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: More time with Lambchops.
Upper left: Lambchops is beckoning us to come closer.
Upper right: Lambchops is smelling the guide's hat, after which he makes a grimace and shoves it back to him.
Lower left: Lambchops is lightly bouncing our guide's head up and down into the ground.
Lower right: Lambchops is bouncing Arlene's head up and down, after doing the same with the Belgian girl beside her.
ā¢ My video tape ran out just when Lambchops was getting especially friendly, and I missed a lot of the action ā my camera bag was being carried by our guide who was on the ground with Lambchops.
ā¢ At the end, we saw the Silverback whose name is Mushamuka. He put on quite a display for us by uprooting and pulling down a bamboo tree to demonstrate his strength.
Monday, 10/23 - Kahuzi Biega National Park, Zaire: The Silverback named Mushamuka, who has just broken a young tree in two that he pulled down to show us how strong he is. He weighs 550 pounds and is the eldest of a family of 27 gorillas.
This Silverback never charged at us either, thus proving once again that my memory is incorrect ā he must have decided that his feat of strength was enough to intimidate us.
ā¢ It took us about 45 minutes to trek out to the road at about 1:00 pm. We ate our picnic lunch there by the road so that we could get back in time to check out and make our plane.
ā¢ We were driven across the border to Kamembe Airport in Rwanda, were we took a small 20-passenger plane to Kigali for dinner and to spend the night.
Monday, 10/23 - Leaving Zaire
Tuesday, October 24 ā City Tour of Kigali, Rwanda / Kigali to Nairobi, Kenya
ā¢ We had a city tour of Kigali this morning for 2 hours with the last half hour spent shopping in downtown Kigali. We also stopped beside the road and watched two men making mud and straw bricks. Then we were taken to the airport where we flew to Nairobi, Kenya.
Tuesday, 10/24 - Kigali, Rwanda: Myself and Stan during our city tour of Kigali
Tuesday, 10/24 - Kigali, Rwanda: Two men making bricks out of mud and straw.
ā¢ We spent the night at the Nairobi Safari Club. Arlene and Joe joined us for dinner at a nice restaurant in the club. They required jackets and ties, so Stan went back to our room and changed, while the maitre dā found a jacket and tie for Joe. They didnāt care what Arlene and I were wearing š.
Wednesday, October 25 ā Nairobi to London
ā¢ We did some fast shopping in Nairobi. Our driver met us at the African Heritage shop at 9:30 am to take us to the airport. The City Market was open early and African Heritage let us in an hour earlier than they usually open. We bought a small wood carving of a Rwandan pygmy (the pygmies were reputed to be gorilla poachers). I purchased three necklaces (made from antique Ethiopian silver with red amber, malachite (a green copper carbonate mineral) and lapis lazuli (a deep-blue metamorphic rock). I also bought a yellow amber necklace for my friend Marlene.
Purchases in Kigali: A wood carving of a Rwandan pygmy and three necklaces made from antique Ethiopian silver and red amber, malachite, and lapis lazuli. The statue of a Masai Mara warrior that we bought in Kenya is on the left.
ā¢ We spent the night in London near the airport at the Heathrow Penta Hotel. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant there.
Thursday, October 26 ā London to Chicago to Los Angeles
ā¢ We flew out early this morning and landed in Los Angeles in mid-afternoon. Customs went smoothly.
Postscript
This trip was the most exciting and adventurous sightseeing trip that we have ever taken. It cannot quite compare to our sports adventures like our whitewater kayaking or my skydiving, scuba diving and sailing across the Pacific, etc. ā but for regular touring, there is nothing that we have done that compares to this one.
Our other most favorite travel adventures after our African ones are our trip to Papua, New Guinea, and our two trips to the Galapagos Islands. I plan on writing missives on all of them eventually.
Epilogue
In December 2023, the local magazine for our city titled Stroll Rolling Hills featured my article titled, "Trekking In Search of the Mountain Gorillas." The three-page spread including the centerfold is shown below.
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