"You
are most welcome!"
Americans
for UNFPA East African Leadership Safari August 2005
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Gorillas
"When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate on the preservation of the future."
These words were the last diary entry of Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist) before she was murdered at her research camp in the Virunga Mountains (above).
The few hundred mountain gorillas that are still living on this planet live in the Volcanoes National Park where Dian Fossey lived and worked.
The top photograph shows the park from the lawn of the Gorillas' Nest Resort at dawn on the day I went gorilla trekking. The photograph below, taken a few hours later, shows the view from the mountains looking back towards the resort. I'm about half way up the mountains.
Trekking
We drove for 30 minutes to the base of the mountains, parked...
and set out through the fields...
to the edge of the park...
and made our way up steeper and steeper slopes, through brush and vines, until the slope was almost vertical (top photo). After a couple of hours of climbing we were told to leave our backpacks with a guard. We climbed for only a minute more, and there were the gorillas.
Gorillas: 1 of 4 pages
(c)
James Cowan
2005