- I am Eric Hanson, and this week on "Epic Trails," I guess I'm getting married in Rwanda.

(all cheering) (person yelling) The air feels so fresh here, and here we are just getting a, we get the Golden Monkey tour, and now we're trucking for the gorillas.

Mud presents quite an obstacle, but you just stop and you look around.

The jungle here is so lush and green.

(people singing in foreign language) This is a bigger challenge than I expected it to be.

Definitely feeling it.

I am Eric Hanson.

When I see a trail, I see more than a path from point A to point B, a good trail is the ultimate opportunity to explore, to discover new landscapes, and to challenge myself.

When I don't have a pack on my back, I'm thinking about my next big adventure, because my mission is simple.

My mission is to discover the world's most epic trails.

Funding for Epic Trails is provided by Discover the World.

Collette offers small group explorations tours, destinations and local experiences designed especially for small groups.

Explorations by Collette guided travels since 1918.

The Alinker three wheeled walking bike.

Assisting people with an active mindset to regain mobility and access the outdoors.

Keeping users active and engaged in life.

More information at Alinker.com In4Adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure and by these additional sponsors.

(peaceful music) Rwanda is a land of mist and magic located just south of the equator in East Africa.

It is a lush and fertile country.

It is perhaps most famous for being home to the mountain gorillas.

Today I am traveling to Rwanda to see the country not only for their gorillas, but to see the diversity of wildlife, its unique landscapes, to climb mountains, and of course to dance.

As I arrive in Kigali, I feel it's important to learn about some of the sobering history of Rwanda.

I'm going to the Kigali Genocide Museum to learn of the atrocities that were committed.

In 1994 after decades of ethnic propaganda and division between Hutu and Tutsis, nearly a million Tutsis were slaughtered in 100 days.

This was a brutal nightmare that saw the massacre of women and children pitting neighbors against each other in the name of ethnic cleansing.

The Kigali Genocide Museum is here to honor the dead, to remember the past, and to create healing for a country that was devastated by violence.

At this site alone, there are 250,000 people buried in mass graves, and I'm visiting during the time of remembrance on the anniversary of the 100 days of genocide.

Many others are walking the grounds to pay their respects.

Obviously, to see something that happened in my generation to witness, you know, from afar, and you hear about it in the news and then to to be here, it's, it's really humbling to to be here, especially with the window of time in which the genocide occurred, so you're seeing the family members come through, and gifts to their loved ones, and I just think that it's a really important thing for people who are coming to Rwanda to visit this place.

There's a lot to take away from this experience.

(peaceful music) Although the country's past has been scarred by this violence, the resilience of the Rwandan people has moved forward in astounding ways, which includes the development of the thriving tourism industry we see today.

- The fireplace was- - After a brief visit to the King's Palace Museum, on our way to Nyungwe Forest National Park, we spotted a cluster of colobus monkeys by a beautiful tea plantation and decided to get the camera out for a closer look.

This feels like quite the welcome to Rwanda.

Nyungwe is one of Africa's oldest national parks.

It is home to a stunning variety of birds, plants, and animals.

I'm meeting up with Ami, a local guide, to explore the trails of Nyungwe and to learn about the local ecology.

- This trail we're going to use is called, can you read?

- [Eric] I can, I think so.

Igishigishihi Trail.

- Yeah.

Igishigishihi.

- Ah I was close.

- [Ami] Yeah, you made it.

(peaceful music) And do you see that tree in front of us?

Yeah, this left side that is the ferns.

- Yeah.

- Right side.

That is the orchids.

- Oh, orchids.

- [Ami] Yes.

(peaceful music continues) - [Eric] I kind of feel like a monkey.

- (laughs) Isn't that real?

- Yeah.

- One hand.

Next hand.

One hand.

- You like a monkey?

- Yeah.

- For me, I'm just learning to jump like them.

- Oh, you're learning.

- Yeah.

- [Eric] I want to see.

(Ami laughs) The air feels so fresh here.

- Yeah, this fresh air.

- Wow.

- And the Nyungwe national park is most famous as Water Tank of Rwanda.

- [Eric] This is the water tank of Rwanda.

- Yes.

- I love that.

- Yeah because of 70% of water people use.

- Yeah.

- Comes from Nyungwe National Park.

- [Eric] Yeah.

I mean, it feels so pure and beautiful.

(peaceful music) (upbeat music) Exciting morning here.

I just camped out in Nyungwe National Park, and I am setting off with Ami for a chimp trek, and so we are gonna be searching for some chimpanzees.

And right off the bat, I think there's actually some chimps that we, that the trackers have discovered.

So it's gonna be an exciting day.

Looking forward to getting after it.

(upbeat music) Chimpanzees can be elusive, and today they're on the move.

Okay so we spotted them right off the bat, but we must have alerted them and gotten them agitated.

So they're oh, oh, they're right, turn.

Turn around.

Turn around.

Wow.

- [Ami] We have three group, which already habitations.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

And the, this one is one of those three group.

- Okay.

So these are familiar with people.

- Yes.

Yeah.

- They're habituated.

- Yeah, they're habituated.

(upbeat music) - There's so much atmosphere here.

We had a massive storm last night and it just dropped a ton of rain, and now all the clouds are dropping into the basin and retreating, and it's just fantastically beautiful.

Is this common to see the clouds like this?

- Say it's a specific thing, season, not common.

- Not common?

- Not common.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- Thanks for making this happen for us.

- I cannot explain how lucky you are.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- [Eric] I feel incredibly lucky.

This is a spectacular morning.

- Yeah.

- [Eric] Yeah all right.

Yeah.

There's just so much action going on right now.

The chimps are calling to each other and they're moving, and we're just trying to keep up as best we can.

This is really cool.

(upbeat music) (animals calling) Just that sound is so evocative.

Just kind of like lights your senses up.

After chasing the chimps through the jungle, we finally get a moment with one who's stopping for a snack, but the moment is short-lived.

That's so cool.

(upbeat music continues) (animals calling) Oh my God.

It's intense.

So one of the things for protecting the chimpanzees here is to not have too much human interaction time so that they don't feel stressed, overly stressed throughout the full day.

So, and then we just have to wish them well and let them have their own day.

(birds chirping) So I hear that somewhere close to here is some amazing dancing, so I'm hoping to get a little cultural experience.

Conservation isn't just about wildlife.

It's important for the people who live alongside the endangered animals to also thrive.

The Gorilla Guardian's Cultural Center is a community of ex poachers, people who are turning to the arts to create a better way of life for themselves, which also helps protect the gorillas.

Here visitors can participate in a cultural celebration that benefits people and gorillas alone.

(both cheering) As the cultural experience deepens, I begin to get a little nervous.

Unbeknownst to me, it appears this community has some pretty big plans in store for me.

Oddly enough, this wouldn't be the first time I've accidentally gotten married on "Epic Trails."

I don't know how my other wives will feel about this, but sometimes you just gotta go with the flow and dance.

(upbeat Rwandan music) - Okay morning, morning.

- Morning.

- And my name is Jolie I'm one of the guide here.

- Jolie?

- Yes.

- Eric, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

So today we are going to track a family called Muhoza.

- [Eric] Muhoza.

- [Jolie] Is one of the 23 family we have in Volcano National Park.

(upbeat music) - Rwanda has been on the forefront of wildlife conservation for the last 50 years.

The story of Diane Fosse, who started living amongst the mountain gorillas in the sixties here in Rwanda, shined a spotlight on a species approaching extinction due to poaching and habitat loss.

With continued conservation efforts, the mountain gorillas are growing in population again, and research being done here is vital to their ongoing success.

(peaceful music) People come just to visit these monkeys, and here we are just getting a bonus, a two for one.

We get the Golden Monkey tour, and now we're trekking for the gorillas.

This is honestly amazing.

- Erik, I get a good news from the trackers.

- Yeah?

- They found the gorillas.

- They found them?

- Yes.

- That's helpful.

- And Muhoza are very excited to meet us.

So let's go to meet them.

- They know we're coming?

- Yes, they know.

- Oh, wow.

That's great news.

- [Jolie] She is another female.

You can see the silver back is napping in middle.

- [Eric] Yeah.

- [Jolie] Then he's surrounded by babies and juvenile.

- [Eric] Yeah.

So this is like the living room?

They're all just hanging out.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

Wow.

This is amazing.

- [Jolie] Not, not always we can end the one hour seeing gorillas in open place and more individual and doing different activities.

- [Eric] Seeing the gorillas here is such a unique experience.

But what really made this over the top was seeing a curious little one month old approach me and Jolie.

Everyone, including Jolie, and our trackers, were surprised by the baby's bold moves.

It's rare for such a young gorilla to leave its mother's side.

So this was a special treat for everyone.

- [Jolie] it's my first time to see a young month old, one month old.

- Yeah.

- Coming curious.

- Yeah.

- You want to see on the camera?

He's, yeah.

- Yeah.

- That was a great experience.

- I'm amazed.

- Yeah.

- I'm amazed.

There's such an emotional connection that happens with seeing these gorillas.

They're so human-like you see the souls in their eyes and the curiosity in their faces.

I can't believe how lucky we are here today to, to see the gorillas like this to be out in the view with the mountains in the background.

Honestly, this is just like blowing my mind is just such a great experience.

The mountain gorillas live only in one place on Earth, the high slopes of the mountains in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I'm meeting up with a guide and a team of porters who will help me on a two day climb to the top of Karisimbi, Rwanda's tallest mountain.

So this is a very productive region for growing food?

- [Beck] Exactly because the soil is volcanic soil.

- Yeah.

It's black.

- So very, very fertile.

- Yeah looks so good.

- Yeah.

- How's the trail?

Is it gonna be very muddy?

- Of course.

- Oh, you're laughing.

- [Beck] So, you know our forest is a tropical rain forest.

- Yeah.

- So we have a lot of rain.

It's raining almost every day.

- Yeah.

- So in rainy season, the forest is wet and muddy.

- Hey, you are excited.

I'm excited.

To say there's mud on the trail to Karisimbi is an understatement.

At first, I tried my best to avoid stepping in the shin deep mud, but I quickly realized resistance is futile.

Oh, look at that.

Oh, that's some mud.

Woo hoo this is fun.

Oh, yeah.

- Yes, you follow me.

- I will do my best.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Ooh, so far don't so good.

Don't jinx it.

(both laughing) Oh, mud presents quite an obstacle, but you just stop and you look around.

You've got these beautiful cascading rivers.

The jungle here is so lush and green.

Dealing with the mud is exhausting and despite my best efforts to keep up, I find Beck is always calm, cool, and waiting for me to catch up - For Eric the whole path we were directing conversation, having some fun, joking.

- How are you still not sweating?

I don't get it.

- I can't actually, this one is not a hike.

This one is, is still baby hike.

So the mountain, I still waiting for full one okay.

(both laughing) - All right.

- Okay let's, yeah, let's go.

- [Eric] My pride wounded, I carry on.

So we did not make our goal of getting into camp before the storm unleashed on us, so there's been some massive lightning strikes coming down.

So definitely a concern.

(thunder roaring) All right.

Let's get to camp!

(laughs nervously) Lightning and climbing mountains don't mix.

The storm is right on top of us.

We are all motivated to find cover.

Luckily, our base camp is not far away.

It's so atmospheric here.

- Okay.

Good job.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

Nice work today.

I hope it takes longer than like 40 hours for trench foot to set in.

(peaceful music) Climbing mountains requires early mornings.

The team is up well before the dawn and eager to resume the climb.

The rain has stopped overnight, and if all well, we'll climb to the summit, and return down the mountain before the next round of thunderstorms.

So we left camp about 45 minutes ago, starting to see some light breakout, I'm excited to climb one of the tallest mountains in Africa.

Karisimbi is 4,500 meters, but Beck warned that it would get steeper and it's a lot steeper.

(birds chirping) Oh, geez.

Bird sound.

It's time to keep moving.

How many meters do you think we've already climbed?

- Now we are almost at 4,000 meters.

- Oh, it looks like we're also changing different plants.

- [Beck] Exactly.

- Do you know what kind of plants these are?

- That one is the same one we saw down there.

It's called the dendro senacio.

- [Eric] Oh, okay.

- [Beck] Then those one, the the long leaves.

- Yeah.

- It's called the lobelia.

Yeah actually, those one, they grow only on the highest elevation.

- Yeah they're very interesting plants.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure.

- [Eric] I feel like I'm on another planet here.

The ecosystem is so unique at this elevation.

I'm seeing highly specialized trees and plants that have adapted to this environment that don't even look real.

This place is wild.

You good?

- Yes.

- Oh having the time of my life out here, this is so cool.

- Yeah.

- Beck how long have you been guiding on this mountain?

- Oh yeah, I'm here in this park for 20 years, then I do this mountain once a month.

- Once a month for 20 years?

- Yes.

- Woo.

- Imagine.

- That's a lot of summits.

- Yes, yes.

I think this mountain should know me.

- It knows you, yeah?

- Yes.

(peaceful music) - Oh man, yeah.

That is spectacular.

Really wonderful moment right now, we've been hiking in this fog bank and it's all just kind of just dropped 200 meters just in the last one minute.

So we were completely obscured and now we can see out so far, so beautiful.

This is one of the most special mornings I can think of.

Just this landscape is so different, so unique than to anything I've ever seen, and we're getting amazing weather, great light.

These clouds are incredible.

I think being here in the rainy season was a good idea.

I'm on the final push.

The summit feels so close.

I'm exhausted and feeling the effects of the elevation, but with each slow step, I feel the growing sense of achievement that comes with climbing mountains.

This is a bigger challenge than I expected it to be, definitely feeling it, but I'm amazed at the weather.

We've got this cloud action that's coming in and out, and it's just revealing the landscape and then closing it in, it's wild.

(dramatic music) - Right here.

- Woo.

Yeah we did it.

Good job, Beck.

- Yeah.

Thank you very much.

- Ah.

- Appreciate the thought, your special fitness.

- Yeah I've been training.

- For sure.

- For the last 30 years to do this.

- Sure.

Good.

Now we are above all volcanoes, we have here this area.

- We're on the top.

This has honestly been an incredible adventure, far beyond anything that I anticipated with coming to Rwanda.

This has just been so eye-opening to see this beautiful country, to see it for just so much more, to see it for the landscapes, for the nature, for the wildlife, for the amazing people here.

This is an experience I'll never forget.

Honestly, this has been one of my favorite top experiences ever.

So good, so good.

I am grateful.

(peaceful music) Funding for Epic Trails is provided by Discover the World.

Collette offers small group explorations tours, destinations and local experiences designed especially for small groups.

Explorations by Collette guided travels since 1918.

The Alinker three wheeled walking bike.

Assisting people with an active mindset to regain mobility and access the outdoors.

Keeping users active and engaged in life.

More information at Alinker.com In4Adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure and by these additional sponsors.