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Published: June 13th 2010
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Uganda
We decided to come to Uganda on a whim after having read and heard amazing stories about the mountain gorillas in this country. There are only 600 mountain gorillas in the world, and 300 of them live in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Southwest Uganda. Mountain gorillas are the closest relatives to human beings with 98.5%!o(MISSING)f our genetic make up being identical.
The journey to get here was one of the most difficult we have faced. From the Masai Mara it took us 8 hours in the safari van to get to the bus stop for Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The overnight bus took 12 hours over bumpy, potholed, dirt roads to get to Kampala. We were immediately met by our next safari van headed for Bwindi which took 11 more hours over even worse roads to finally reach our destination. On the way, we crossed the equator from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere. Even though the drive was gruelingly long, the scenery on the way through the countryside of Uganda was magnificent. The entire country seemed to be lush and green. We even saw elephants and hyenas along the road.
Bwindi Impenetrable
Forest
We awoke the next morning at sunrise, in the beautiful surroundings of the mountain rain forest. Before the trekking began, we had a briefing with the park rangers which included a short video about the gorillas and some basic information about how to act while we were with them. The rules included staying 21 feet away from the gorillas, don't talk, and crouch down low if the silverback gets angry with you. They told us that we could be trekking up to 8 hours to find the gorillas. We would get to spend 1 hour watching and photographing them as they need to limit the human contact the gorillas have to reduce their stress levels. They only permit 24 people to visit the gorillas each day, in 3 groups of 8 people. The forest has a lot of mountainous terrain covered with tree roots, vines, streams, and other difficult obstacles. We were prepared to embark on our difficult journey but looking forward to the reward of visiting the gorillas in their natural habitat at the end.
Our group started off down the dirt road we had driven in on, which lead away from the park. Our family
of gorillas had 19 gorillas and was the largest family that was tracked. After 10 minutes, our guide told us to wait on the side of the road as the trackers were finding the gorillas exact location. We didn't understand why it mattered which route we took if we were going to be walking for the next several hours. However, 20 minutes later, our guide led us through a local's corn field for 5 minutes and told us that we were almost at the gorillas. Everyone was shocked at how quickly we had found the gorillas who happened to be outside of the park boundaries looking for food.
When we got our first glimpse of the gorillas, there was a youngster up in a tree and a few adult females on the ground about 15 feet away from us. It was astounding, as it seemed that they didn't even notice that we were there and just went along with their normal activities of foraging for food and grooming one another. Quickly, our guide pointed out the location of the silverback, the dominant male of the group. He was enormous compared with the rest of the family, at least twice
the size of the next largest member. He was sitting calmly about 20 feet away from us chewing on some branches he easily broke off with his huge, strong hands.
The group then started to move onto another area to look for a better source of food, and before we knew it, there were gorillas everywhere. We saw a mother with an 8 month old baby clinging to her back as she scampered away, and three other gorillas walked right by us, no more than 2 feet away. Obviously they didn't get the 21 foot rule.
Soon we were trekking all over the jungle tracking the gorillas as they rummaged through the trees and undergrowth looking for a good place to settle down for a while. This went on for quite some time and we were constantly on the move, looking at the gorillas through the trees, and occasionally getting an unobstructed view of them as they walked on all fours from place to place.
Finally near the end of our hour with the gorillas, they found a good place to settle down for a while, and luckily for us it was in a semi-open space under
a short canopy of trees. We had to jump over a stream and through some vines to get a good, close view of them. When Ian jumped across the stream with his tripod in hand, he tripped and fell forward which caused the silverback to get very protective. Faster than seemed possible he stood up on his legs, beat his chest three times, raised his hands in the air, and let out a hair raising roar. It was terrifying, but fascinating to observe. Unfortunately, everyone properly used the crouching position to show submission to the silverback and no pictures of this display were captured. At the very end, the guide didn't seem to enforce the 21 foot rule and allowed us to get within 3 feet of the gorillas sitting in front of us. Our time flew by faster than we could imagine and our guide had to drag us away from the gorillas at the end of our hour with them.
Traveling to Tanzania
The next morning our safari guide drove us 9 hours to a town where we could catch a bus to the Tanzanian border. The 6pm bus didn't show up until 7:15pm so when we
Black Back Gorilla
Black Back means a juvenile male gorilla less than 12 years old reached the border, it was already closed for the night. Luckily, Rachel made a Tanzanian friend on the bus, Florian, who pronounced his name "Freudian." He took us under his wing and found us a place to stay for the night in this little border town. We also went out to dinner with him and he also accompanied us all the way to Mwanza, our final destination in Tanzania the next day.
Our experience in Uganda was a fantastic one. The country had the most gorgeous scenery to drive through. Tourism in Uganda is still in its infancy, and their economy is focused on exporting coffee, tea, and sugar cane. Our time with the mountain gorillas was as amazing as everyone had told us it would be. It is one of the most memorable activities that we've done on this trip and we don't regret the painful journey to or from Bwindi at all.
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Richard Barron
non-member comment
Great photos and a wonderful experience. Don't forget to take some more pictures wiht my election banner in them. I will post them on my facebook page. Travel carefully and enjoy