The following day our driver, Fred, picked us up and we embarked on the first leg of our mission. We were on road to Kampala to collect our tracking permits, before the 12 hour drive to the Bwindi ‘Impenetrable’ National Park in the Mountains in the South of Uganda! Moses from the UWA came out to the car to hand us our permits, however looked most unimpressed by our choice of vehicle…an ageing white, small Toyota.
Regardless, we cracked on and all was well for the first 10 hours of our journey… and then we found out why it was called the impenetrable forest… The final 50km of our journey took us about 3 and half hours and it was no surprise Moses was worried about our choice of car. The road was a dirt track winding through the mountains, often with dislodged stones falling onto it, thick muddy patches that made our wheels spin, regular goats parading across our path and the occasional small river we were required to drive trough in order to get to our campsite. Fred did a great job of steering the car through the many obstacles and we were relieved to arrive in Buhoma our home for the night, in the pitch black after a slightly nerve wracking drive.
Buhoma is a small town in the middle of the rainforest which is a pretty incredible setting. The mountains tower all around you, each one with a carpet of thick trees and bushes as far as the eye can see. The tops of the mountains are shrouded in mist to add the atmosphere and the air is so humid and thick, it makes the whole place feel very close and intense. When we arrived the air was filled with the sound of crickets and various other jungle animals and birds crying into the night. It was incredibly atmospheric and intimidating place, however got a whole lot more so when after about 10 minutes of us being there the sky let out a huge crack of thunder and the heavens opened, soaking the town. Spears of lightening illuminated the scenery every few minutes whilst we huddled in our dorm bed under a metal roof listening to the rain pound! We were just imagining the family of mountain gorillas, sat in their jungle kingdom, beating their chests in the thunder and lightning King Kong style and couldn’t wait to go and track them the following day!
We awoke early and after breakfast and a briefing, we headed of to the mountains to track the rare primates. Our guide led the group, armed with a machete and a rifle first up the side of a mountain on a path, then we went off road and he literally had to cut our path as we went with his 12 inch long blade. We tramped and trailed our way through the dense undergrowth for around 3 hours until finally we stopped just outside of the Gorilla nest…
The family we were tracking was the Rushagura family, which consisted of 20 individual gorillas including one Silverback, 5 big lady gorillas and lots of young ones. The guide informed us that there are only around 670 mountain gorillas left in the world, and that half of them lived in the Impenetrable Forest. It really was such a privilege to be so close to these incredible endangered mammals. And then we caught our first glimpse…
A huge female Gorilla, and three young ones playing in the trees around her. They looked almost childlike, but VERY hairy and they were hilarious to watch! They were really heavy, and as the chased each other up trees the branches would often collapse and they would tumble back down and roll down the hill. We had to work hard to stifle our laughter and stay quiet, but the guide managed to get us around 3 meters from gorillas. It was literally like being a part of the family. We moved on to see the rest of the family, including a 2 month old baby and then finally the Silverback. He was ENORMOUS! Life as a Silverback sounds pretty great to be honest; they just monkey about all day, eat leaves and are surrounded by adoring women!
After our time was up, we trekked back to base camp to make our way home. The walk down was treacherously slippery but worth every minute to have seen such wonderful creature. We emerged from the jungle, exhausted but ecstatic…two Muzungu’s in the mist!
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