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.