When my boss first asked me to go to Africa again to do a review / investigation, I thought “No, I don’t have the time, with all my other traveling for work – I have near to no time at home in London as it is”. But when he said it was Uganda that was asking for help (a country I’d always wanted to go to anyway), I managed to negotiate only actually working a week there and began researching the possibility of trekking those elusive and highly endangered mountain gorillas way up in the mountain rainforests on the border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
After some preliminary research I found that, due to how little in number and endangered mountain gorillas are (there are only 700 left on the planet), the Ugandan Wildlife Authority only issues a handful of tracking permits a day and they are generally booked out months and months in advance. Undeterred, I must have contacted every travel agency and tour operator in Uganda, trying to get on a cancellation list and secure one of these small pieces of gold-dust and, as luck would have it, I managed to secure 2 permits for roughly the time I could go (my advice here is persevere, folks, as people do cancel). So, before you know it I was off to Uganda with my new found friend of a few weeks, Liz, to see one of the most endangered species of animal on the planet.
Arriving into Entebbe airport (27 Sept 07) was easy by African standards and it was relatively quick to get through immigration and “customs”. Our driver and guide, Paul, picked us up from the airport in a 4WD and we immediately began the long journey to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest on the Rwandan and Congolese borders. After one hellish 11-hour drive, if I had to dish out a piece of advice to anyone considering the same, it would be “Don’t do it!” Not unless you have buns of steel and the patience of a saint. I would say “break it up” but there isn’t really that much on the way to “do”. A little out of the way, one can stay on a lake and arrange game drives, canoeing, etc. so this may be worth looking into. The drive, however, especially the last few hours through the scenic mountains and rural villages, was stunning! All the children were incredibly vibrant and friendly, running after the vehicle, waving and smiling and shouting as we drove through the mountains and countryside. Definitely one of the friendliest experiences I’ve had driving through the rural countryside in Africa. A fantastic start for what was about to come.
At Bwindi Impenetrable, we stayed at The Gorilla Resort, an up-market tented camp facility on the hillside with great panoramic views of the adjacent mountainside leading to the national park and, over the hill, the Congo. For those of you who have never stayed in an up-market / luxury tented camp facility in Africa, dispel those images of campsites at Bognor Regis and think more along the lines of naturalist hotel room with en-suite facilities all under a canvas roof or just outside the canvas tent on a wood decking / platforms. Take all of this, add solar powered heating and electricity, perch it on stilts on a picturesque hillside and you have what the avid safari enthusiast terms “luxury”: pretty nice for a tented camping experience, by any measure of the imagination.
After a night round the log fire, made and lit on a raised wooden decking platform in the forest, drinking a variety of double liquers, we retired to have one of the best and most peaceful sleeps ever, in our tent beds, surrounded by the sounds of mother-nature. Hot-water bottles provided n all. How quaint! Now that’s service!!! After being woken at 615am with coffee and cake, we decided against having a shower (it was bloody freezing at that time in the morning and at that altitude), had breakfast and left for the park / reserve / jungle entrance to meet our group of 8 (where we were briefed on how to react and how NOT to trek if we were sick as these are our close cousins and can catch our colds and viruses) and start our long, arduous hike up the mountainside into the rain-forest. I should probably note here that Bwindi Impenetrable was originally named the Impenetrable Forest by the colonial masters of Uganda, due to the extreme denseness of its forests and rooftop canopy. As far as jungles go, it was definitely denser than any I’ve encountered to date, but our armed guide and trackers had their machetes at hand so we cruised through.
We trekked for a full three-and-a-half hours before we reached the trail of the group of gorillas we were tracking. Trackers were sent out in the morning to track them from where they were last spotted and we met up with them around three hours after we began climbing. I darted up the front when we met the trackers, overtaking the “older” Americans in our group, and before I knew it there were two gorillas within feet of me, fighting or playing. I basically sh*t a brick. They were so unbelievably grand and powerful and boisterous when they moved, and I wasn’t sure how close you could get to them or how safe it was; up until that point we were told we’d be observing them from a distance. This was basically sitting in the dining room with them whilst they munched on bark and leaves. The next hour or two was the most amazing animal encounter you could ever hope to imagine. You can get so close you can almost touch them. They, like almost every other animal in Africa, can (and did!) mock charge you when they feel threatened, but you’re generally safe with the guides, who growl back at them to keep them at peace. We basically followed the clan around for an hour or so, watching them feed, groom, play, climb trees, swing on vines and sleep. There was one large dominant silver-back male in this group, a mammoth of a primate with a huge humped head, who could look mean as hell but also sad and gentle as ever too. One of the females in the group had just lost her baby. It had been dead for only one day when we arrived. She hadn’t yet accepted that it was dead and so was carrying around its dead carcass wherever she went. The trackers believe she’ll accept it in the next few days and discard the carcass, whence the trackers will hopefully find it and take it to a vet to determine the cause of death; this particular female has lost her last three young. It was so incredibly sad to watch. You could see from the expressions on their faces (hers and the dominant male’s) that they had trouble coming to terms with it, believe it or not. Then again, they are our cousins, so why believe not?
After a while of following them around, getting caught in between them, watching them and standing in awe and disbelief at where we were and what we were doing, we started the long hike back (after lunch in the shade of the rainforest) to the base camp. If you have to do anything before you die (well if you have to do three things before you die), make the journey, take the trip and venture into the Ugandan (or Rwandan) jungle and see these wonderful, charismatic creatures in their one and only natural habitat on the planet. There are only 700 of them left in this world: 320 are in Bwindi Impenetrable and the rest either just over the border with Congo and Rwanda, or in Zoos around the world. It’s a priceless experience and a worthwhile investment that I guarantee no-one could ever come close to regretting!
Below are some other photos from my trip, including working in the village communities in rural Uganda.
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