Gorillaz!

The pick up for the gorilla trek was at 6am, from there we headed to a backpackers lodge in Kampala to pick up two more people. I was quite nervous that they would be an annoying couple or something and I’d feel like a total third wheel the whole weekend but it turned out they were brothers from the UK, John and Alex. Actually they were very fun and it turned out great! The trip to Bwindi – where the gorillas are- ended up being 11 hours! On really bumpy roads in a very uncomfortable van. I went with Gorilla Tours – and it went very smoothly and the driver, Robert, was very nice but I think I’d do it differently in the future. The trip cost about $470 and only included the road trip and two nights hotel in Kisomo. All in all, it seems extremely overpriced and the road trip was miserable. The countryside was beautiful tho. As we crossed the equator and got closer to the forest, the landscape became very hilly, and all the land was terraced farmed (mostly corn, bananas, beans and sugar cane). I expected more untouched land, especially since the President is really against family planning because he wants population growth (reportedly because he wants to be powerful like China!)- I was thinking there would be unused land to house all these new people he wants. But, while there’s certainly no population density issue – it’s all rural – it’s also all used. As we got further we passed gorgeous lakes, and could see a range of volcanos. We could actually see both DR Congo and Rwanda from where we were (our hotel was about 14kms from each). I also realize how much I see in my travels that I just don’t understand;
– Why are all those people arguing?
– As they are cutting the horns off the cow head on the side of the street, what do they do with the horns?
– They almost appear to be quarrying for gravel and sand, is that possible?
– Why have they drilled square shaped potholes into the road?
– Do the older kids get embarrassed when mom buck bathes them on the side of the road?
– How is billiards so huge that there are pool tables in rural villages under thatched umbrellas; doesn’t the rain ever come sideways?

We stayed at Travellers Lodge in Kisoro, which is a historic base for gorillas research, and was frequented by Jane Fosey and the like. It was plain and simple but nice, and the food was great! We didn’t get into town much. On Saturday night, Chelsea was playing in the finals against Everton and John and Alex were big fans so we went into town to catch the end of the game. That was fun- two rooms of men watching the game and no one really seemed all that concerned with who won – they just liked the play.

So on Saturday we got a 6am start to another 1.5 hour drive to the park. There were two other people who joined us (so we were 5, it can be up to 8). The ranger started with a talk on the facts; about 700 mountain gorillas exist today – they don’t survive in captivity so there are none in zoos. 350 of them are in the area I was in. One family group of about 20 was in the specific area, Kuringa, that I was in. They say there’s about a 95% chance we’ll see gorillas but a small chance we won’t. So we started out and hiked down the mountain to the ranger camp and right there were the gorillas. One smaller silverback (just means younger and not as silver), Lafiki (the bottom most picture) and several other younger males. They were knocking down all the banana trees, but they don’t eat the bananas, just the inner parts of the stalk. We hung with them for 40 minutes or so, and then moved on. Walking further was much more difficult – no paths, just machetes. We weren’t so much walking on ground as bunches of roots and branches, so it was easy to lose footing. We found one eating alone (apparently they just eat and rest). We were about to leave and he sort of charged to warn us that he wanted to be where we were. Then we found the big family group of about 15, including the dominant silverback, Safari (picture of his back is above) and 6 month old twins. Apparently twins are really rare. As we were standing there, a juvenile female wanted to join in and walked past me and looked at the ranger with a naughty look in her eye (I swear) and then tugged on my pant leg and then ran off. The ranger said she wanted to play☺

And that was it – an hour went by and we were shuffled off. Climbed back up the hill and had lunch.

Uganda - pre gorillas

The beginning of the trip didn’t start out so well. The plan was that I would come into Entebbe early afternoon Sunday and then make the 2-3 hour trip out to Mbale so I could visit a health camp we were doing there the following day. However, in planning this the office forgot that Sunday was the day that school started up again so traffic was ridiculous! It took us about 6 hours, so by the time I got there it was 8:30pm, I had missed dinner and was exhausted! The camp was good to see but they forgot to plan for lunch and it was in a rural village where there was no food for sale (and a cholera outbreak) and then we had to leave really early and because the traffic was such a mess again I didn’t get back to the hotel until after 9pm! I had to start training a group the next day, which isn’t how I like to start these trainings (exhausted) but the rest of the week went much better. It was also great to see Mbale and the countryside – tons of banana trees, very very green – maybe because it’s rainy season but I think it’s just a lush country. Also – people seem to be fetching water all day every day in big yellow containers. Usually, water fetching happens in the morning and the evening but here people were carrying these jugs around all day! Finally, the terrain is quite diverse, there were moments it reminded me of Pennsylvania farmland, and then moments of Montana plains with mountains in the back. But mostly it was jungle-ish.

The hotel we had the training at was very nice, Ranch on the Lake, which as the name suggests is on Lake Victoria. I think this side of the lake is prettier than the Kenya side but I haven’t really spent a lot of time on the Kenya side so I shouldn’t judge. One very nice thing is that Uganda doesn’t have the crime rates that Kenya does so it’s much safer. In the evenings I would go for a jog around the hotel. It doesn’t get dark until about 7, which left me time for a quick jog. The hotel is about 5km off the main road, on a dusty path. The first day I went with my iphone but the villagers (adults and kids alike) were so friendly that I felt bad that I couldn’t hear them. The kids wanted to race me, and because it’s not Kenya I could still beat them (in Kenya I’d lose). Ugandans are certainly very friendly – everywhere I went people would wave hello. Kids and adults. As I was jogging I actually felt bad because people would so jubilantly wave hello to me that they would lose the balance of the heavy jug they were carrying on their head. The next day for my jog, I went sans iphone and it was very fun to talk to all the kids. Some of the adults recognized me from the day before and would congratulate me on running every day. I ended up going to a church with a soccer game being played on the grounds. One little girl in plastic yellow flip-flops and a red checkered dress (a typical school uniform) jogged at least a quarter mile with me. Chatting and laughing hysterically! The jogs were definitely the highlight of my days.

It was weird to come here and get absolutely no sense of Kampala. I was really looking forward to the good Mexican place I’d heard about (you can’t get Mexican anywhere!) but that will have to wait until next trip.

I was originally scheduled to fly back to Nairobi on Friday morning but instead called to see if I could get a pass to trek to the gorillas and did!