We froze (regretful that our videos were off!), and Elishya kept whispering – stand still, don’t run. He suddenly rose, beating his chest King Kong style and charging towards us. His rippling muscles and a line of silver hair gleamed underneath a tree, even as he glanced over at us with his thoughtful liquid brown eyes. The prized view, however, was the boss – the alpha male, a magnificent silverback. We first saw a middle-sized adult chomping on leaves 10 metres away from us, and a mother and baby in a leafy cove. We left our bags and sticks with the porters, took a last drink of water, and with only our cameras, trudged up the steep slope behind the trackers. It was 1 pm when we sighted our first gorilla on a slope above us, a black figure that swung from tree to tree. Armed with hardy sticks, we went off into the deep forest at 9:30 am, descending on soft slippery ground from the edge of the road. We drove 15-20 minutes on a dusty road to descend into the forest, where we were allocated our porters. Dangerous elements are frightened away by firing shots into the air. An armed ranger is protection against the rare wild elephant, pigs and the ‘unhabituated’ gorillas.
We were allocated the Oruzogo family, accompanied by our local guide, Elishya, and an armed ranger. This was a great way to help the local economy and engage the local population in gorilla tourism. He encouraged us to take porters who would carry our bags and help us with the terrain. He told us about the habituation programme that makes gorillas accepting of human presence, the rules of staying 7 metres away from gorillas and stepping back slowly if they approached. It was a short drive to the rangers’ centre where our passports were handed in and the guides crowded together to choose gorilla families for their travellers, while one of the rangers briefed us. A good dinner and sleep were much in need of preparation for the next day.ġ6th August, 2018, day one of our gorilla trek. We stayed at the Trekkers’ tavern cottages in the Ruhija sector of Bwindi. We reached Bwindi two days prior, after a two-hour drive into the mountains from Kahihi, a small dusty town in Uganda. This was 17 th August 2018 – day two of gorilla trekking in Bwindi impenetrable forest.
The silverback’s gentle brown eyes look around, cameras click… We settle down to admire him, keenly aware that only a little over a thousand mountain gorillas exist in the world today.
One of the guides taps my shoulder, pointing out the boss, a powerful, muscular silverback on a ledge. I clamber up the slope to a narrow clearing, all senses alert and rife with anticipation, and can count five dark figures around me. One hour with the gorillas, only cameras in hand”.
No food and water when the gorillas are around. We reach the base of another slope, where our instructions are delivered succinctly, “Bags and sticks down. We are sliding down the mountain slope, deep into the valley, in a straight line towards where the Mukiza family are currently feeding. Our guides are hacking their way through with machetes, while my petite porter, a young girl, is holding my hand, guiding me through the spongy forest, slippery with old leaves and bark. The term ‘impenetrable’ sinks into my boots as we turn into a steep slope with no grip and no trail. On hearing the good news from our trackers, we instinctively begin making brisk, adrenaline-filled strides through the thick foliage towards the gentle apes. For half an hour, we have been on a narrow but perceptible dust trail through bushes and overhanging trees. Within seconds of finding them, they ring our guide to communicate the exact location of the family.īefore the gorillas are spotted, our group of eight trekkers, guides and porters stroll through Bwindi impenetrable forest in Uganda, making tentative way towards the allocated gorilla family. The trackers have been out since the wee hours, following on from the last known whereabouts of the gorillas. “That’s it, the gorillas have been spotted”, exclaims Sobaan our guide, as he strides purposefully into the forest.
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