Oct. 8, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest NP, Uganda
Yesterday had some thunder and small rain downpours, so we knew what to expect. The gear list said long pants, long sleaves, rain coats. When we arrived at the briefing for our adventure, 75% of our fellow travelers had gloves (to protect from stinging nettles) and gaiters on their pants/shoes to protect against fire ants in the shoes. There is no local REI to get last minute gear, so we improvise with pants tucked into socks.
There were about 80 people at the trail head, and we would be broken into small groups, and sent to different gorilla families. Some went to the “easy”, some to the “intermediate”, and some to the “difficult” destinations. Yesterday some groups came out after 8 hours. We were assigned to an intermediate adventure. Fine with us. We are there for the gorillas, not for the walking around in a rainy jungle. That is reserved for tomorrow.
Briefing complete (two rangers front and back with guns (elephant risk), one ranger guiding, stay together, wear face masks so you don’t catch anything from the gorillas and more importantly, don’t infect them.). No kissing the gorillas.
We were warned that if someone got hurt, they would call for an African Hellocopter. Four porters and a chair. That was enough incentive to stay fit and healthy.
Off the eleven of us went. 7 guests, 3 rangers, and one porter hired by one of the guests. Then the thunder began, and bits of rain, and bits of thunder for the first hour.
The ranger was talking to the “tracking rangers” who were searching for the gorillas. After about two miles, we stopped and stood in a big rain squall for about 30 minutes while they continued the search for our gorilla family.
The call came that they were found, and had stopped moving, and we should approach. After a muddy, slippery mile, we found the trackers, and they pointed us to the gorillas. “over here!” and we walked over and almost tripped over the gorillas.
The group was a family of 11, one silverback, one 5-8 month toddler, one 2 weekold baby, a couple of boisterous teenage boys, two mothers, and 4 other mid-size gorillas.
They had just finished fighting with another family about 200 yards up the valley (the rangers had split them apart), and were now resting.
For the next hour, most of the troop slept, except for the 8mo old who kept moving. The two teenagers would nap, nibble on leaves, and then fight/wrestle….like teenagers.
We have 15-20 minutes of video, and about 150 still photos to process. Here are a couple to start the process. The “best of the best” will wait until we are home with the big screen and the power tools.
The silverback is BIG!
The walk out was uneventful, wet, rainy. Total distance around 4.5 miles. Total time about 5 hours. One hour with the gorillas, 45min standing in the rain, and the rest moving. The boots were nice and muddy when we finished.
An absolutely amazing hour. We expected to sit on one hillside and watch “over there” or sit on the ground while they wandered around. The jungle is so dense, you could walk past them 10 feet away and miss them completely. It was so much better to stand in the edge of the brush and watch.
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