Gorillas!

Next on my bucket list was Gorilla tracking.  My expertise in this area is limited to watching a BBC series, a few Nat Geo specials, and at this point I’ve read about half of Dian Fossey’s book Gorillas in the Mist.  So I speak with more passion than knowledge.

Here’s what I can tell you:  A group of gorillas are lead by a silverback.  (A very successful silverback may have up to 30 members in his group.)  In Uganda there are nine groups that are habituated.  Visitors are assigned a group.  Naturally, it’s incumbent upon us to travel to where the assigned group is located.  We were assigned Busingye (which means peace) and his group.

The group of human trackers are limited to eight and the time of your visit will be an hour.  Obviously this is so that the habituated gorillas only have to tolerate the camera-happy public one hour a day.

We stayed at Nkuringo camp (loved it!) which was amazingly remote on the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.  From our back porch we could have a cup of coffee and look through the mist into the Congo.  The drive from Kisoro was a 40km (2 hour) riverbed like road.  The locals call the ride an “African massage.”

The other folks who were staying at the camp came back from gorilla tracking with stories of walking for 45 minutes to an hour and sitting among gorillas that played and frolicked all around.  Some younger ones showing so much interest they actually touched the visitors.  So our expectation was set.  I even commented to Tony, “Gosh, I hope we have to walk for at least a couple of hours, when else will we have the opportunity to hike through a jungle?”

As is often the case, one should be careful for what one wishes…..

First thing in the morning, we are treated to another African massage on our way to the briefing area where we met our guide Benjamin and our assigned police and military guards along with the other six trackers.  Tony and I also hired porters to carry our stuff as well as push and pull us as needed.  This of course lightens our burdens and provides much needed jobs for the locals, many of whom benefit only tangentially from the Gorilla Tracking $500 permits if at all.

After about an hour and ten minutes of walking in the rainforest, Tony recanted his aspiration for a two-hour hike and said he would feel content if a gorillas materialized right in front of him.  We plodded on.  After about 3 hours, Benjamin got a squawk on his radio and we turned off the narrow trail.  From this point on the guides were hacking a path for us through the jungle.   We weren’t actually walking on the ground.  It was more like we were suspended in mid-air on a system of floating roots, vegetation and occasionally old elephant dung on a virtual vertical down hill newly established path (kinda).

At this point, I learned by observation that my porter, John had aspirations of being a guide and we were going to stay at the front of the queue of hikers and porters.  He clenched my sweaty hand and pulled me through vines, under branches, around trees and over logs with such speed that it would be best described as a controlled fall for over an hour.

At last we arrived to where the real trackers who had found the Busengi family awaited us and lead us the last 100 meters.

Busingye proved to be shy.  He and his clan were fully habituated, but not necessarily of the country club variety like our fellow campers’ gorillas.  These gorillas were more like brilliant techies who will tolerate company, but would rather keep to themselves or their own kind who better understand them.

Nevertheless we were able to chase and watch for a full hour.  I think I saw one of them look at furry wrist at about 59 minutes then look at us…time to go Mzungu.

Fortunately the way-out was not as exhausting/exciting/explorational as the way in.  Wonder if Benjamin has a sardonic sense of humor?

Bucket list item checked and loved!

On to the Maasai Mara….