"You
are most welcome!"
Americans
for UNFPA East African Leadership Safari August 2005
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The Gorillas' Nest Resort
This is an early-morning view from my patio at the Gorillas' Nest Resort. North of Ruhengeri, 30 minutes up a very bumpy dirt road, the hotel is at the edge of the Virunga National Park, at the intersection of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This scene is not the park - it's just a shot of Rwanda around Ruhengheri. The park was way to my right when I took the photograph.
The park protects the habitat of the few hundred remaining mountain gorillas. It's really three contiguous parks, one in each country. A one-day gorilla-trekking permit costs $250 and this means the gorillas are a significant source of tourist revenue, which may protect them for a while. No one has succeeded in raising a mountain gorilla in captivity.
We took a group photograph with a gorilla statue in the grounds of the resort,
and a man who worked at the hotel took us on a short tour of his village in the fields close by. He is here with his children.
Eucalyptus trees grew around the resort.
These fast growing trees are planted everywhere to prevent erosion of the soil in this mountainous and rainy country.
The resort suffered from an almost complete lack of hot water, but otherwise was fine.
Having cold running water was more than the farmers close by had.
It's hard to keep clean without running water...
...living in a mud hut with a roof of thatch.
So the volcanic soil is very rich, and there is a lot of rain for crops, but people are still very, very poor.
Rwanda: 1 of 9 pages
(c)
James Cowan
2005