Uganda gorilla trek at Bwindi impenetrable forest

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27 June: Kisoro, Uganda

Today is the day we trek to the gorillas!!! We are hiking at Bwindi impenetrable forest.

Up early, we had a cold breakfast where I again enjoyed fruit with peanut butter on rice cakes. My packed lunch for the day also ended up being rice cakes with peanut butter and some crisps I had picked up.

The night before, some of the people had decided to groups:

1) Julie and Mark were going separate and ended up hiking in a different area then us.

2) faster wanting difficult group: Michael, Lionus, Niki, Tamar, Dave, Emily, Mark

3) wanting slows slow lass: Timara, Vanja, Nadia, Hiko (German who just joined us on arriving in Kisoro) Tessa and Vickie

4) best group haha: myself Samantha, Sophie, Hilary and Mirium and we ended up being joined by a couple from Norway.

After our breakfast, we piled into the trucks to head up a very bumpy mountain road. I was in the middle seat of the back with Samantha and Sophie on either side and with Niki and Mirium in the way back sitting sideways and Hilary upfront. Towards the top of the mountain, after traveling through the villages there, we stopped and hiked a little ways up to have our briefings. They talked about when we get close to the gorillas and the different gorilla families. Our group was trekking the Kahungye family which is he largest in the family with about 26 members. After our briefing, we all got back in the cars to drive up the mountain further to the start. On the drive, everyone was forsaking out because the road became this narrow road with lots of rock on the edge of the mountain. If there was one wrong be, we would be gone. Along the way, if you decided, we picked up a couple of porters. One for Samantha and one for the couple from Norway. For the hike, they provide two people with AK 47s, one in front and one in back. One of ours was a ranger and the other a police man and then we had our guide Steven. The gunmen are for the other wild animals as there are sometimes elephants and such that will charge and hey will fire a warning shot that scares them off.

The hike started pretty near the same area for everyone with a nice incline to start with. We went up a very steep climb for about an hour and a half and then started downhill for about thirty minuets. We then stopped as our guide, Steven, radioed to the trackers to see where our family was. It ended up that the hill we just went down, we had to go back up since our family was moving. We went all the way back up for forty five minuets and then reached a spot where our guide pulled out his machete and we started through the actual impenetrable forest. It was a fun time and a little struggle with the uneven ground, twigs everywhere, large trees to climb over,p, and everything. After about an hour of going down hill and almost getting lost for our guide (Samantha's porter helped us), we made it back to a path. A little further down the path we reached the gorillas. It was amazing. The first one we saw was a silverback in the tree. They told us that another gorilla family had been near and the toe had been fighting. The other of our groups was following the other family now elsewhere. We then got to see a few up close. Two of the trackers kept leading us through the bush to find them. One we got very close to and so the gorilla started to charge us. They stopped him but it made all of us jump since he was only about three meters away. After that we hiked further up to see many in the trees above us and we go to see a few climb down the

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