May 24, 2018
The day began with heavy rain as I drove up to Volcano National Park. I arrived at about 6:30 for a 7:00 start, and there was not another soul around. About 6:40, the staff arrived en masse and the rain dissipated. Even so, I took the guide's advise and rented a pair of high rubber boots to slog through the mud and occasional quagmire.
I drove about 1/2 hour to the beginning of the trek, with Oliver the guide riding with me to ensure I found the way. Our first stop was to notice the pyrethrum daisies that are the source of bug spray (1). Oliver told us that in November, the whole hillside is filled the daisies, which are planted in rotation with potatoes to keep the soil fresh.
We arrived where the golden monkeys (2) were after an easy hike of less than an hour. Due to the heavy rain earlier, the monkeys were breakfasting late today. They were unfazed by our presence (3), jumped about in the trees, ate leaves and scurried into the fields to find some leftover potatoes (4). The monkeys will venture onto the ground with hesitancy because they are susceptible to attack by feral dogs. They also prefer not to be at the top of the trees because eagles can pick off their young.
There was a woman who joined us who is pursuing a PhD in England (5) whose dissertation is on the social habits of golden monkeys (6). Her findings so far suggest that the social life of the golden monkeys have some differences from those of blue monkeys, of which the golden monkeys are a sub-species. Being mating season, she pointed out courting displays involving monkey grooming, chasing females, and (to her excitement) visible evidence of semen on a mating couple.
After the monkey visit, I drove on to Gisenyi on the shore of Lake Kivu, and enjoyed the sunnier climate here at the lower altitude. My tent for the night overlooks the lake and the D.R.C. (7) on the opposite shore. As dusk fell, the tri-hulled outrigger canoes set out for a night of fishing. The sound of what I can best describe as sea shanties with an African rhythm drifted across the lake as the paddlers sang to keep their paddling in sync. The boats go out at night and use lights to attract the fish. Fishing during the full moon is apparently not very fruitful as the fish are not attracted to the light.
(1) The story is that a group of soldiers slept in a daisy field one night and awoke to find all of the lice on them were dead. Hence, the discovery of the bug killing properties of the daisies.
(2) In a book trilogy by Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), one of the characters (Mrs Coulter) has a deamon (a) who is a golden monkey.
(a) Basically, an external physical manifestation of the soul.
(3) The national park staff have worked to accustomize one group of the golden monkeys to basically ignore the people that come traipsing through each day.
(4) It is strictly forbidden to feed the monkeys. We had to leave our backpacks, etc. some distance away just in case the monkeys smelled a banana or some other food in the backpack. The park does not want the animals to view the people as a source of food.
(5) Oddly enough, she could not determine from my accent whether I was English or American.
(6) Despite being the subject of daily treks, very little about golden monkeys has been scientifically documented. All the research energy in Rwanda seems to focus on the gorillas originally studied by Diane Fosse in this same region.
(7) The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire). Due to continued sporadic instability (b), the D.R.C. was not in the agenda for my trip (c)
(b) The bloodiest war since World War 2 was the long-running civil war in the D.R.C.
(c) Although later in the trip, when at a narrower part the lake, I got a "Welcome to the Democratic Republic of Congo" text message, indicating a signal from a mobile phone tower in the DRC.
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