1976: Africa Pictures

We went looking for gorillas in Rwanda, in the Volcanoes National Park.  Our guides warned us that when we encountered gorillas we should be very quiet, make no sudden movements, and if threatened, under no circumstance should we run away.  So we found a troop of gorillas, and one of our guides immediately ran away.  Somewhat disconcerted, we asked the remaining guide What The Hell? He told us that the guide who fled had been chased by a gorilla in a previous encounter, who bit him in the ass (!) 

The volcano we cimbed was Nyiragongo, a few miles from Goma and Lake Kivu, in Virunga National Park.  It had erupted ten months earlier: on January 10, 1977, the crater walls fractured, and the lava lake inside drained in less than an hour. The lava flowed down the flanks of the volcano, overwhelming villages and killing at least 50 people.  We found a charred VW bus on the volcano's slopes; we were later told its owners escaped the eruption, but their dog, who they left in their car, was killed.

Finally, we trecked up the Mountains of the Moon, better known as the Ruwenzori, on the border between Uganda and Zaire.  The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches 16,762 feet, just a few feet less than Mt. Kenya; its upper regions are permanently snow-capped.  The trek was very difficult, especially the lower elevations, where the "trail" was obscured by moss and booby-trapped with roots and branches:

We stayed with a french friend in Bujumbura, on lake Tanganyika, who had a wonderful collection of local art, and a tame crowned crane in her garden.