After a great night's rest – Erin in her own twin bed and Casey and Nick in their romantic king bed we woke and waited for the private car we hired for an exorbitant cost to drive us the quarter mile down the road to the park headquarters. Once there, we were shuffled into groups of 8, then our designated guide told us the story of the gorilla family we were to trek and about an hour later we were back in our “private transport” heading up the mountain. We have to take a minute and explain the absurdity or “private transport.” When we got the permits for the gorilla trek (something that has to take place months in advance) we were told that we must hire a private car to drive us the 15 km from the park head quarters to the site where we were to initiate the hike. Apparently, they say this to everyone so that nearly each individual hires his or her own vehicle. Ridiculous! As a result our group had at least 5 nearly empty Land Rovers... The cool thing about Volcanoes National Park is that the crap ton of money you spend to possibly see the gorillas all gets dumped back into the park, the crappy thing is that none of that money gets put into the surrounding communities. With this in mind, an American tourist can try to justify paying the crazy high cost of the unnecessary private transport because that money does go directly into the community. Our guide explained the various noises that we were likely to hear from the gorillas and then gave examples of the grunts that the guides and guards were likely to make in return... a rather humorous event, listening to several large African men grunting and pretending to be gorillas... After five hours of hiking up, down, over, under, back tracking, and then a bit more of the same, we were informed that the family we were tracking had been engaged in a major battle with another family earlier that morning and had been on the move ever since. Apparently, it is difficult to track a band of roaming, angry gorillas through a jungle... who knew? When the gorillas finally chilled out and decided they were hungry enough to hang out for a bit, we were able to catch up with them for one breathtaking hour. For the next sixty minutes we sat with and observed the gorillas from inside their natural habitat, while these majestic creatures regarded us as little more than just another bit of the bush. We stood in awe and fear as the great silver backs walked past us, brushing our legs. Their gentle demeanor was such a contrast to their mass and obvious strength, a contradiction of which we were very grateful. This family was quite large (17 gorillas – several babies, the mamas and other women folk, a few black back males and 4 silver backs – the largest of these was the number-one -big-daddy). It was absolutely amazing and worth every penny!