Uganda part three – Gorillas

What’s happened on this adventure so far – https://lynntowin.ca/uganda-second-part-safaris/

On the road to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

At sunrise, we set off in our safari trucks on a highway alongside the park, up to the edge of a valley, or escarpment. We saw elephants, buffalo, birds, baboons all from the highway.

Here, many elephants don’t have tusks. They have evolved that way as those are the ones who survived poachers looking for tusks.

From the top we had a view down to crater lakes. We stopped at beautiful green tea fields. Still climbing, there were amazing landscapes, and in the distance, seven dormant volcanoes. The volcanoes all belong to Uganda, Congo and Rwanda, who share all the mountain gorillas in the world.

We saw women working in the fields, men sitting around in the villages. This is apparently how it works in Uganda, Jamil told us while shaking his head.

We followed winding roads for hours, finally reaching Gorilla Lodge on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The view from my room a few stories above road level was right into the layers of forest. The lodge is in many steep layers of rooms, with reception at road level, rooms above and below, and the restaurant at the top. It’s a hike. Staff wait for you after dinner to take you to your rooms at night in the dark, to make sure you get there safely. Steep steps, no lights, wildlife nearby, what could go wrong?

Mountain gorillas

There are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas in the wild, and none in captivity. Many years ago, attempts were made to capture baby gorillas. Their families fought to the death to keep them, then the babies died anyway. They have suffered greatly from human contact.

We share 98% dna with these apes. They can live until about 40, stand over 5 feet tall and weigh 400 pounds. Fortunately they have a gentle nature unless you try to steal their babies! They are highly intelligent. A captive gorilla named Koko learned over a thousand words in sign language.

I watched the 2014 oscar nominated documentary Virunga when I got home from this trip. It focused on gorilla conservation in the Congo and the human conflict they face, with park rangers risking their lives to protect them. The violence in Congo as shown in the documentary is ongoing.

Mountain gorilla trek

There are several gorilla family groups in the forest, and trackers locate them and stay with them while you hike to them. The hike can be very difficult and take several hours each way. Gloves are needed to pull yourself up through thorny foliage. But, you can hire a porter to help you for $20, helping the local economy and yourself.

This trek makes the whole trip rate as “very difficult”, since it can be an arduous all-day event, all depending on where the gorilla families have set themselves up in the forest. And sometimes they take off to another area.

Based on where the gorilla families were located the night before our trek, we had to choose between “medium” and “medium hard” gorilla treks. I picked medium hard, just because of the people in my group who also chose it.

We rose very early, driving a short way to the gorilla center. We watched local women dancing for a long time, while our passports were processed.

Our group of 9 was assigned guides, a gorilla family, and porters. Three of us hired porters, but they helped the whole group at times, and they were well worth it. My porter held my hand a lot, and pulled me along towards the front of the group.

We got back in our vehicle to drive to the start of our trek, which was – at the Gorilla Lodge where we were staying! We set out with a guide, a guy ahead of us with machete to cut through the forest and gun in case of raging forest elephants, a guy behind with another gun, and the three porters. We’re expecting a 5 to 6 hour return trek, so it could be 3 hours until we reach the gorillas. We tramped uphill through dense vegetation, streams, mud and elephant dung.

Forest elephants

The elephant dung was fresh, so there really are forest elephants. And we saw them! A mom and baby elephant came into view across a ravine. This was really unusual, as the forest elephants are rarely seen. And this was not good, since the mom could become aggressive to protect its baby.

The guide told us to go faster and stay together as a team while we moved away from the elephants. We continued on quickly, and about an hour in, the guide turned to tell us to put our facemasks on.

Mountain gorillas

We had already reached the gorilla family! Across the ravine, I could see the family of 12 bouncing around in the bushes. Amazing, but I thought we would be a little closer to them.

I didn’t have long to think that – when the gorillas spied us, they came barreling across the ravine to settle around us to eat and play, just a couple of feet away from us at times.

The head of the family, the silverback, came first and settled in to watch us. He is older and his back has turned silver – the younger adult males are called blackbacks.

There was a baby a month old. He rolled down slopes a lot, and beat his little chest imitating his dad. I spent quite a bit of my time with them watching the big daddy silverback play with the baby. That was really special.

After an hour with the gorillas, we reluctantly headed back to our lodge. We were awarded gorilla tracking certificates.

A woman from the hotel followed me back to my room to collect my mud and dung-covered shoes, gaiters, and pants to clean them for me. She did an amazing job!

I had the rest of the afternoon left to watch the Impenetrable Forest from my room, and reflect on the amazing experience we just had.

On to Rwanda tomorrow.