Gorilla Trekking
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda - Day 6
Katie and I had learned that gorilla trekking wasn't an exact science. Sometimes you are lucky and see a troop of gorillas and return within a few hours, sometimes you are not lucky and it takes a ten hour hike to see a glimpse. There are two species of gorilla, eastern and western, and each of those have two sub species. The gorillas in Bwindi are eastern mountain gorillas. At the Nkuringo Gorilla Camp (just a few minutes from our lodge), we had a briefing and learned the do's and don't of interacting with the animals. The ranger directed us not to look them in the eye and to keep a distance of about three meters. There are three troops of gorillas in Uganda and they are only allowed to see eight white people a day. In the room where we had the briefing there were a lot of pictures and informative signs. Most of those pictures were from one troop of fifteen gorillas, the biggest in Uganda. One heart breaking picture was of a mother gorilla with a dead baby (I thought the picture was the gorilla holding a banana peel until we got back after the hike and the ranger pointed it out). Later the ranger told us that the mother carried the dead baby gorilla for almost two months. After our briefing we put boots to the ground and started our jungle hike. All total we would hike for about six hours and covered around ten miles. The trail took us first over dirt roads, to a small dirt path through a secondary forest, and finally through a tiny, wet, and steep trail through the jungle. We went up and down, over a few wooden bridges, and through several streams to get to the gorillas. After we met up with one of the trackers, we dropped our bags, grabbed our cameras, and went off trail to join the troop of gorillas. Amazingly, this was the troop of fifteen! We had found the 'premiere' troop of Ugandan gorillas! The massive silverback sat above the others on the hill. There were a few blackback gorillas (male gorillas that haven't matured to silverback yet), several females, a group of adolescents, AND A BABY! The same mother gorilla that was in that heartbreaking photo had a two week old baby. Katie and I watched as the mother cradled the tiny baby while a few of the adolescents wrestled. One of the smaller, younger gorillas kept pounding his chest! It was so cute! At one moment I was sitting down and the whole troop started to move up the hill to be closer to the silverback. Some of them plopped down just a few feet away from me and one of the young gorillas started to approach me. The ranger asked me to move and after said that the gorilla probably wanted to play with my camera. I was amazed how these animals didn't care at all that we were there. We even saw a few of the gorillas climb! I didn't know they could, but they climbed to the start of the tree canopy which was probably thirty feet high or so. Sadly, one of the gorillas that climbed up high was the mother with the baby. The rangers weren't sure what happened to the first baby, but climbing like that is dangerous for the baby.
GORILLA FACTS:
Humans have 98.3% of our DNA in common with gorillas
In 500 BC Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer, landed on an island which was "inhabited by a rude description of people" that he further described as savage, hairy women. Local interpreters called them 'gorillae'
Gorilla mothers use a form of 'baby talk' with their infants
Gorillas has unique finger prints as well as unique nose prints
Gorillas build a bed out of leaves and branches on the ground or in a tree to sleep
The magical hour with the gorillas flew by, and sadly it was time to go. Our band of trekkers made our way back out of the jungle and had a graduation ceremony before going off on our separate ways. Katie and I had quite a drive ahead of us as we needed to make our way back to Kigali, Rwanda. We crossed back over the border (The Rwandan, WHO backed Ebola screening had soap to wash your hands) and enjoyed the views of Rwanda one last time as we made our six hour journey to Kigali. That night we stayed at Hôtel des Mille Collines (which is the hotel where the events of the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' took place).
