Grrr Gorillas
Anyone who has seen the movie “Gorillas in the Mist” can’t help but feel compassion for the gentle giant gorillas – what wonderful creatures to be on the brink of extinction. I wanted to see them in the wild before it was too late.
Most people go with an organised safari group and this is the easiest way on limited time but the adventurer in me meant I just turned up. This has its risks as you could be on a waiting list for days even weeks since each day has a limit on the amount of people that can enter each park to track the gorillas.
There are several places to see the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Mountains which borders Uganda, Zaire and Rwanda. I chose the lesser known and smaller Mgahinga National park in far south west corner of Uganda [right on the border with Rwanda and Zaire].
The entrance to the park was up a steep dirt track 12 kms from Kisoro, a small basic village. There was a camping ground at the entrance so my new found travel buddy and I decided to stay there. I discovered I had my travellers cheques stolen in Kampala so I spent the whole second day in the village trying to get some help from American Express. The Post office was the only place in town that had a phone. The postmaster allowed me to use his office and I was there well after the PO had closed. Since there was no transport back to the camp the man borrowed a motorbike to drive me back in the dark. The hill was so steep in one place we had to get off and walk up!!! My buddy was pleased to see I had returned.
But despite this bit of bad luck, the good luck was that there became some vacancies to trek the next day. Only 6 of us allowed with 3 guides at this park. Other parks had a larger number allocation. This helps the gorillas remain wild but be at ease with humans. The time it takes to find the gorillas can vary a lot too – from and hour or two to 12 hours if they were on the move.
The guides were very good at spotting spoor and within 2 hours of climbing up the slope, getting into deeper bush and finally crawling on hands and knees through the thick undergrowth, we came across our first gorilla. A female who was feeding and keeping a watchful eye on several youngsters. They were amazing and the youngsters, once they saw us sitting there, came swinging through the trees to drop right in front of us and then swing away and chase each other. I didn’t get any photos of this as I was just too enthralled with the closeness of them and their fun antics.
Then it was time to move on…the female made sure we were following her and she joined up with several more females and juniors. Then the most magnificent creature appeared. A giant silverback. One had passed in the distance earlier but this one was part of the group. Absolutely amazing. The paws especially were massive and it made me sad to think so many of them have been slaughtered just for this body part to become an ashtray.
We were as close as the rules allowed and even though we were in thick jungle there was a natural tunnel where we sat and could see the gorillas as easily as if on a TV. I loved how the silverback knew we were there and a few times very nonchalantly would roll over and prop himself up on an elbow to look at us as if to say “well get a photo and hurry up” then would roll over and have a snooze. This was interrupted several times by the small ones using the big fella as a high jump and playground.
The time allowed passed way too fast but I will never forget this fantastic experience and to any animal lover I would recommend this as one of the best things you can do in your life.