Gorilla Tracking

A guide will take you to the entrance to the Volcanoes National Park where you prepare to set off on the hike. The hike can take anything from 20 minutes to four hours (depending on which group you are tracking).

Mountain gorilla tracking is one of Africa's most superb wildlife experiences. It is difficult to describe the exhilaration attached to first setting eyes on a wild mountain gorilla. That said, it is not something to be undertaken lightly. The hike up to the gorillas' preferred habitat of bamboo forest involves a combination of steep muddy slopes, dense vegetation, slippery underfoot conditions after rain and high altitude.

You are permitted to spend one hour with the gorillas and it is forbidden to eat or smoke in their presence. It is also forbidden to approach within five metres of the gorillas. Gorillas are susceptible to human diseases and if one ill tourist infects a gorilla they will have no resistance and this could cause the death of the whole group.