Volcanoes National Park

The permit, and what 1,500 dollars covers

A Rwanda gorilla trekking permit is 1,500 US dollars per person for a foreign non-resident, set by the Rwanda Development Board. It covers park entry, the ranger guides, the trackers who have been out since first light, an armed escort and one hour with a habituated family in a group of eight. There are around a dozen families open to visitors and eight permits per family, which caps the whole park at under a hundred trekkers on any given day. The figure is indicative in the sense that the board sets it and can revise it, and the rate on the day of booking is the one that applies.

Permits are held against a specific date. From June to September and December to February they go months ahead, so the correct order is to secure the permit first and build the lodges around the date you are issued. A second trek on a second day is a second permit at the same price, and a surprising number of people who could have afforded two wish afterwards that they had bought two.

Allocation morning at Kinigi

Everybody reports to the park headquarters at Kinigi by 07:00 for the briefing, where there is coffee, an Intore dance troupe and, more importantly, the allocation. The head guides sort visitors into groups of eight and match each group to a family by walking distance and by fitness, so this is the moment to mention a knee, a heart condition or a bad night at altitude. Tell your operator in advance as well, because it carries more weight raised beforehand than raised in the car park.

From Kinigi you drive twenty to sixty minutes to the trailhead, then walk up through potato and pyrethrum fields to the stone buffalo wall that marks the park boundary. Everything above that wall is forest. Porters wait at the trailhead and cost around 20 US dollars plus a tip. Take one whatever your fitness: they carry the bag, they haul you up the wet sections, and the fee is direct income to people living against the boundary.

Altitude, mud and nettles

Kinigi is at about 2,300 metres and the trekking works up the flanks of Sabyinyo, Gahinga, Muhabura, Bisoke and Karisimbi from there, so most of the day happens above 2,500 metres. The usual effect is breathlessness on the first climb rather than anything medical, but if you flew in from sea level the previous evening you will feel it, so arrive a day early if the itinerary allows.

The ground holds mud in every month and the nettles sting straight through thin fabric. Gaiters, long trousers, gardening gloves and boots with ankle support are the difference between a good day and a miserable one. The minimum age is 15, and travel insurance for this trip needs to cover trekking above 2,500 metres.

Golden monkeys, Bisoke and the Fossey tomb

The golden monkey trek is the most underrated activity in the park. The permit is around 100 US dollars, the walking is short and mostly level through the bamboo, and the troops move fast and close. It is the obvious second day for anyone staying more than two nights.

Two harder walks are also sold. The climb to the crater lake on Bisoke at 3,711 metres is a steep four to five hours up and three back down on mud. The hike to Dian Fossey’s tomb at the old Karisoke site is shorter but still a real ascent, and the graves of the gorillas she worked with are beside hers. Both sit at around 75 US dollars per person, set by the same board and indicative. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund campus at Musanze is where the current research is actually based and is a better hour than most visitors expect.

The boundary is changing

Rwanda has announced an expansion of the park into farmland along its northern edge, with households bought out and resettled and the land returned to forest. The programme is under way and it is consequential for the families involved. Some of the terraced fields you drive through on the way to Kinigi will be inside the park in a decade. It is worth understanding what you are looking at: an extremely dense rural population farming right up against a hard park boundary, and an expansion that solves a real problem for gorillas while creating a real one for people.

The Kwita Izina gorilla naming ceremony, held annually since 2005 and usually in the second half of the year, fills the lodges around Musanze for several days and pushes rates up. Check its date before you fix yours.