Blogs from Mgahinga National Forest, Western Region, Uganda, Africa

When you can hear raindrops on your roof, you know it is raining. When all those drops become one big wall of sound, you know it is insanely torrential, especially when it wakes you up at 4am. I didn’t get much sleep after that which is ok, because we were getting up at 5am anyway. Also, Glyn started writing today’s blog last night. How is that even possible without a Time Machine? And then in the jeep this morning, before anyone (that’s a typo, I meant to say ‘anything’ but ‘anyone’ probably is correct) had happened, his fingers were on fire on his iPad, getting irate about something or nothing. After an adequate breakfast, we left Ikaze Cottages to go to Mgahinga Gorilla National Park for Golden Monkey Trekking. It’s one of the smaller parks in ... read more

Ten days ago, guides in the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park came across a two year old infant gorilla with a snare around its neck. Vetenarians were called in immediately, however to date, they have been unsuccessful in darting and helping the infant. The problem is two fold - the first time the vets attempted to dart the infant, it was in the thick bamboo typical of this area. They missed and the silverback, head of the Nyakagazi gorilla group became aggitated. From then on, the silverback has been overly protective of his infant making it difficult for the vets to remove the snare. Vest have identified that the wire is fairly loose around the gorillas neck, enabling him to continue eating. Unfortunately, living around Mgahinga N.P. are just too many people. The local communities still lay ... read more

News confirmed by guides resident in Mgahinga Gorilla N.P. is that the Nyakagazi gorilla group, which have been based in the park since last August, (2009) have hot footed it over and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those who have permits to trek them are in a tad of trouble, as visitors from Uganda cannot view them when they leave the park. This is a real pitty as peak season is in full swing in Uganda, with July, August and September being peak trekking months due to the favorable weather. Will keep everyone posted as to the gorillas whereabouts. Naughty apes!... read more

We bummed around Kisoro for a day and then took a 2 hour taxi to the National Forest where we had booked to stay a night before our tracking. We were the only people staying at the Park entrance and things were very quiet. The next morning we got up and met our fellow trackers - a couple of professional photographers from Germany, and a Canadian tourist. There were 3 army guys with guns for our safety (we were quite close to the Rwanda border) and 3 trackers. The instructed us on the days activity: We would go to where the Gorillas had been seen yesterday and track them to where they were today (hopefully). We would then track them as they moved through the bamboo forest eating for one hour and then we would head ... read more