Chasing Gorillas

Now entering Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.  It's called impenetrable for good reason, as I soon found out.  After a short briefing about the gorillas, we started the hike.  The views were beautiful as we hiked straight up the mountain and it was very hard work.  The altitude (and probably because I've been at a desk writing for months) made it difficult to traverse.  It was a good hour of hiking before we even crossed into the national park.  The park is 331 square km.


There are 340 mountain gorillas in Uganda.  The rest of the population lives in Rwanda and the DR Congo, approximately 400.  Uganda has 15 family groups. Each is led by a silverback, a huge male.

It took 4 hours of hiking through the junge to find them.  We were actually chasing them up and down the mountain peaks.  Keep in mind, gorillas do not use paths, so for about 2.5 hours we were bushwhacking with machetes through some of the densest vegetation I've ever encountered.  No poison ivy though, a plus.

Was it worth it? Completely.  There were two trackers ahead of us following the group and keeping in contact with our group leader using a radio.  The gorillas finally stopped to rest, and we overtook them.  The male, in all his glory, was about 15 feet away from me.  He weighed about 150 kg and was 34 years old.  Silverbacks can range from 200-300 kg and live well into their 40s.  There was a female and an adorable little 8 month old male baby.  He gave us quite a show and kept coming closer.  The mother would grab him by the hand and lead him back, but he would always escape, smiling and heading back to our group.  We spent an hour with them.  They started to move and we followed them through the jungle, tromping along in our loud human way.  They soon disappeared into the mists. Amazing. Words can't describe just how beautiful they were.

The fun wasn't over yet. On our 2.5 hour hike back we encountered forest elephants, which are very dangerous.  We had a man with an AK47 with us, whose sole purpose was to protect everyone from the elephants.  There are only 44 in the park, and they are very rare to encounter.  Lucky us.  The trees started to shake about 20 feet off the group and there was loud cracking as the elephant broke some tree branches, warning us away.  You know the sound a thick branch breaking makes? That's what we heard.  The look on our escorts' faces let us know the situation was very bad.  They quickly hearded us together as the elephant continued to crack the trees.  We bushwhacked around the area while the guard with the gun kept watch.  It was a scary moment.  We made it back to base with no further mishap. Phew.