Eight hundred metres of climb, then a family that did not care we had permits.
The briefing is ritual: distance, silence, what to do if a silverback decides you are interesting. Then the forest closes and you become a person who breathes on purpose.
The family
We found them in a clearing that felt arranged. A female looked through me, which is the correct hierarchy. The hour is both endless and stingy. You do not take the photograph you imagined; you take the one the mist allows.
Downhill, porters joked in Kinyarwanda. In Musanze I ate potatoes and felt the altitude in my knees. Some coordinates you do not decorate.