Gorilla Trekking: A couple’s 75 visits and counting

Visiting The Volcanoes National park - home of the rare mountain gorillas - has become the dream for many tourists from all the corners of the world.But for Joe Mc Donald, 60 and his wife Mary Ann Mc Donald, 56 from Pennsylvania visiting Rwanda’s mountain gorillas was more that a dream, grew beyond passion and has now tuned to a hobby.The couple visited Volcanoes National park for the first in 2003.Last Friday, they celebrated their 75th visit – a record – and they are counting.“There is no other place in the world where you can be so close to large wild animals and be safe these are the animals that could take one’s head off but they are gentle,” Joe Mc Donald told The New Times shortly after completing their record breaking visit late morning on Friday.They wore proud smiles, wanted to share their joy with the small crowd that had gathered at the bottom of the volcanoes park to congratulate them.“We have known Rwanda in 2001, through news papers. We first visited Rwanda in 2003 and it was so much fun. Since then, we have just kept coming,” he adds“We felt one time was not enough. We decided to come very often and our 75th visit is not the last. We will keep coming until we reach hundred times and above,” Ms. Mc Donald said with putting on her proud smile.“Rwanda is very clean, green, with beautiful mountains and friendly community,” Mr Mc Donald adds, insisting that there is more to the gorillas.After their first visit to Rwanda, the couple has returned at least twice every year and on each visit they trek the gorillas about five times.In 2012, their visit last Friday was the third in the year.And, on each visit, they bring a long other new tourists, a minimum of six on each trip.“We never come alone, we basically get people through website and articles, we invite them and we come together to share experience of wild life animals, as they come they get interest and some have returned on their own,” Ms Mc Donald said.Beyond tourism, the couple is also carrying out research on the rare species. They have collected numerous pictures, documenting gorillas’ lives.“If you visit wild animals in different periods, you see a variety of things, you see individual in its kind, every time it keeps changing. What we saw when we came in 2003 is different from what we see when we came on each visit, and even what we have seen today (Friday) is totally different from what we saw the last time. That is why we keep coming,” says Mr. Mc Donald.“Gorillas are so big, so powerful and so gentle. Their strength is the most interesting, how they break bamboo and how they climb the mountain, gorillas in Rwanda are so special and deserve visiting,” Mr. Mc Donald says the gigantic animals.One thing for sure, the couple says, other support services, have contributed to their enjoying Rwandans visits, something that motivates them to return.“In Rwanda, tourism is more professional, customer care has improved and hospitality of both tour operators and hotel staff is amazing, we have been in other many other countries, but Rwanda is so special,” said Ms. Mc Donald“And the community is very friendly. We now we have many friends in Rwanda,” adds her husband.Joseph Birori, the managing director of Primate Safaris, a tour company, that has arranged and facilitated the couple’s visit since 2003, says his company has had excellent working relationship with the couple.Birori explained that each and every visit does not only benefit his company, but the Rwandan people, the country and the gorillas as well.“Gorillas have started loving you, coming here is like you are coming to visit your friends,” Birori told the couple.According to Prosper Uwingeli, the chief park warden, what the couple experiences on each visit is different.“Every trek you embark on is different. The more you come, the more you see new things. It is always a pleasure to work with you,” Uwingeli said.“In 10 years, the revenues you have brought supported the conservation of the park as well as improving the welfare of each person in this community,” Uwingeli added.The couple says that together with their guests, they have spent close to US $ 1million on visiting the gorillas.The volcanoes national park generated US $ 9million in 2011 and according to park officials, this is expected to rise in 2012.The number of tourists to Rwanda has remarkably increased from 7000 in 2003 to 27,000 tourists in 2011.Winfield Mpekeyemungu, the mayor of Musanze district, where the Volcanoes park is located, thanked the couple for the special bond they have developed with the community and country and assured them that they will always be welcome to Rwanda.“It is an intimate friendship between you and the Rwandan people. We thank you for your role in showing the beauty of gorillas and Rwanda to the world. We also thank you for the support to the community,” mayor Mpekeyemungu said.Paul Muvunyi, the proprietor of Mountain Gorilla View Lodge, the hotel that hosted the couple and the group, said that his business has benefited from the couple’s visit and his staff have established a special relationship with the couple.Larry Vegge from Wyoming in USA who was part of couple’s delegation on their last visit, said his experiences to the park was totally worth it.I would love to visit Rwanda again because there are so many attractive things to see, I appreciated the gorillas. I will come back,” Vegge said.During their 75th cerebration on Friday, the couple was dressed in Rwandan traditional way and crowned as a sign of their majesty.The event was also characterized by the exchange of gifts and awards between the couple and all tourism facilitators.jmbonyinshuti@newtimes.co.rw