Gorilla Guardians — Attraction in Kinigi

It was a fun experience to see reenactment of traditional Rwandan life before colonialism.

They have a series of huts where they enact metal working, hunting, butter making, grinding, beer making, a wedding and a royal hut. The explanations were good, and they let you get involved. At the end they did a dance show for us.

It's worth the money to go. We know many Gorilla Trekkers feel that the $20 to see this cultural village is too expensive, but it really is money well spent.

Bad points : Even though they charged an entrance fee, they pushed heavily for donations. They made you feel guilty and heavily pushed for you to make a further donation or buy their over-priced souvenirs.

in the mock-marriage skit, one of the staff members(my new fake-husband) put his arm around me and held me very tightly. I tried to push myself away and verbally told him to let go. He continued to hold me close for several minutes, long past the skit was complete. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I'm forgiving this as cultural differences, but where I'm from, this would definitely be considered...

What an amazing experience! The people are so amazing and even though they have to provide the same tour to every tourist that comes in, they are never tired, and every tour looks unique. Back to the tour, amaziiiiing. Not to miss if you are in Musanze. They take you through what the ancient Rwandan Culture was about ( I agree I knew most of the stuff since I am Rwandan myself), but mostly, I enjoyed the way they told it in a very genuine and NOT theoretical way. My favorite experience was when they talked about their past lives as poachers (because most of them used to be back in the 90’s) and how they now believe that environmental conservation is key to their survival. Very touching. Anyway, long story short, my most favorite moment was the Inanga (the traditional guitar sorta) . I wish google maps had an option to upload voice notes, coz I recorded plenty 😁 Anyway, highly...

I had a great time visiting the village after my morning tracking the gorillas. In addition to the information about local culture, I enjoyed meeting local people, especially the older people who were former poachers. I also enjoyed the banana beer! My only concern was that I was the only tourist visiting at the time- whereas there were 90 people gorilla-tracking that day. I wish everyone who spends $1k to see gorillas would also spend $35 to support the local people, and ensure that former poachers can see a material benefit to...