Golden Monkeys in Volcanoes National Park

While the gorilla is the most famous primate inhabitant of the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central and East Africa, there is another endangered primate that lives alongside them: the golden monkey. The golden monkey is an old world monkey found in highland forests usually near bamboo. They are beautiful brown and yellow monkeys with large chubby cheeks and bright brown eyes. In Rwanda you can go on a short trek looking for them in Volcanoes National Park. The monkeys live in social groups of around 30 individuals and are fascinating to watch in the wild as they play with each other and jump around in the canopy on pieces of bamboo. The trek is not as long as the gorilla ones and along the way you can hear lots of birds (although we didn’t see any), but we did see some cool bugs and a funny sheep who yelled at us on our way out of the national park.