Golden monkeys!!

What an amazing day!!  Since the volcanoes national park now charges $1500 to see the gorillas (!!) and I saw them in 2007 at a much much lower price, I decided that it was about time I saw some monkeys...and the price was a LOT more affordable...I suspect we had a bigger group than the people gorilla trekking, as many tourists have now been priced out of the market.  As per usual in Africa, buying the tickets could not have been more complicated.  We went up to the booking office in Kinigi yesterday, to buy the tickets and the man at the counter said, "You don't need to buy them today, go and have a think about your itinerary, talk to your family, see what you think, see what you want to do....(you get the idea) and buy them tomorrow morning."  He said they took card payments... what could possibly go wrong?  Justus and I arrived at 7am to a queue of people waiting to pay. At 7.10am the power went off and only cash payments could be taken.  "No problem" we were told, "go and get a cup of tea while you wait." Finally the power came back on, but they could only process one card payment at a time.  And it took AGES for the machine to reset after the power cut. Somehow I ended up at the back of the line, having done what I was told and gone to get a drink...when it finally came to my turn, it transpired that the lady was just inputting my card details into the website, which I could have done myself from the comfort of my bed.  When it came to pay, Nationwide sent me a text with a confirmation number, to prove it was me.  I didn't get the text.  On asking if I could perhaps leave them with my card and driving license and sort out when I returned from the trip, rather than keep everyone waiting, I was told that I should go to the "local" ATM 2km down the very slow, potholed road, but that they would keep a tour guide back to show us where to go when the group left without us!  Off we went.   After I had paid cash, of course, the vital text message had arrived! I ended up paying a lot more because of the exchange rate, but by this point I just wanted to see some monkeys.  We hiked at speed up a steep, muddy hill, with a wooden stick to assist, to catch up with the others - we are at quite an altitude here, so although the climb wasn't that bad, I was out of breath, just because the air is thinner.

I don't know how long they had to wait, but nobody tried to murder us on arrival so it perhaps wasn't too long.  We did move pretty fast.  We continued up towards the national park (pretty sure I saw some kind of eagle on the way), and left our extra bags/coats etc just outside the forest, then walked into the thick bamboo.  It wasn't very long before we found the monkeys, and suddenly all the stresses of the morning were forgotten about!

The amazing thing was that we were only a group of about 8, along with rangers and tour guides, and we were told when we got there that we could pretty much go anywhere we wanted as long as we kept an eye on the guides so that we didn't get lost and "run into a buffalo" (I kind of wished I had run into a buffalo...or an elephant, but neither come as close to the edge of the park as we were, sadly!)  So, you could walk away from the group, and feel like you were just by yourself with the monkeys - they were an amazing range of colours and sizes, and the speed that they can swing through the trees is incredible.  I've got lots more photos, but the internet is playing up a bit today, so you've just got me "Dianne Fossey/David Attenborough" style for now!

It was so special being so close to these monkeys, watching them grubbing around in the ground looking for shoots and insects, and leaping through the trees.  There were probably about 30-40 around us - they have about 180 altogether in the Volanoes National Park, but this was one cohort.  Each group is lead by a female, interestingly enough, but we were lucky that it is mating season because it means they all hang out together.  After they have mated they can be more solitary, especially the males.  It is the females that stay together in their group for life, hence a female leader.  This is the opposite from the gorillas who have an alpha male in charge of each family.

We hiked back down, with more amazing views of the five volcanoes, delivered two rangers back to Kinigi and decided NOT to stop at the cafe where we ate a highly suspect sambosa the previous day.  I was expecting it to be vegetable....and it was more like the inside of a haggis...God knows what kind of meat I was eating...and thanks goodness Justus had the one that had gone-off, because I didn't know what to expect so would probably not have noticed that it tasted strange as he did!  Felt slightly sick for the rest of the evening....wondering if either of us would spew!  Neither of us did...but that is the last time I'm opting for savoury over sweet!  Should have just stuck to African tea!!!

Still, sambosas and dodgy card payments aside, I spent a wonderful hour with the monkeys - something I'll never forget...worth every penny!