DIAN FOSSEY'S TOMB

In 1985, the American primatologist Dian Fossey, who helped protect endangered mountain gorillas, was killed by two machete blows at the age of 53. She had spent 18 years in the Karisoke Research Centre (a contraction of Karisimbi and Bisoke), which she had built at an altitude of 3,000 m in the Virunga range.

She is buried under a stone bearing the inscription Nyiramachabelli, which means 'the loner of the forest'. Her grave is located in the middle of the gorillas she was studying. She lies next to Digit, a silver-backed gorilla that she cherished dearly, who died eight years ago. The circumstances of her murder have never been elucidated, and the identity of her killer remains unknown. Maybe poachers? We know she hated them fiercely, even paying trackers to catch them and take them to the police.

Her life was chronicled in a successful film, Gorillas in the Mist, by Michael Apted (USA, 1988), starring Sigourney Weaver. At present, six international associations continue the work of Dian Fossey, one of the best known being the Dian Fossey Gorilla Found International DFGFI, based in Atlanta, of which Sigourney Weaver is honorary president.

To go to her grave (only accompanied by an official guide), you have to take a steep and muddy trail for 7 km, a 2-hour climb, quickly forgotten as Karisoke is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Without exaggeration!