Uganda: Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park
Mountain gorillas are among the most endangered animals in the world. There are somewhere between 700 and 1000 remaining in the wild. Smaller than their lowland cousins, with males weighing in at around 400lbs, they feed on leaves (40 to 70lbs per DAY) in the highlands of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
If you want to see mountain gorillas in the wild, be prepared for an undertaking. In order to disturb the gorillas as little as possible while still making gorilla tourism an economically viable proposition, permits are issued months in advance. Small groups of trekkers are accompanied by guides (and sometimes porters) to the area where trackers have located the group of gorillas those trekkers have been assigned to visit. After about an hour of time with “their” gorillas, the trekkers trek back to civilization. Permits cost approximately £500, and the length (and, most critically, the INCLINE) of the trek vary wildly depending on where the gorillas have moved.
My group of 7 trekkers hiked 1.5 hours uphill into the Impenetrable forest (which was truly barely penetrable - our guides hacked like demons with their machetes to clear paths for us) to find our group of gorillas. Though it was a family of 15, we only saw 1 juvenile, 1 female (at a distance, in a tree) and 1 adult male silverback. The silverback was feeding on the forest floor, but was constantly moving, so we tracked him for about an hour through the forest, up and down the mountain, in order to observe him. The juvenile was very shy, remaining deep in the foliage.
If you go: In the interest of being completely honest, this experience was disappointing to me. I realize intellectually that I am incredibly lucky to be one of the few people in the world who gets to see a mountain gorilla in the wild. But given the time, effort and expense invested in the enterprise, and especially when compared to the experience other people from my truck but not in my particular group of 7 had, getting a look at 1 adult male seemed underwhelming. I know some of this is a pathetic case of sour grapes - but it is hard not to be envious of the group that got clear views of 4 or 5 feeding quietly for an hour when we scrambled like mad through tough terrain for a short glimpse, or the group that tried less than an hour and saw a family with 3 babies playing. Like any wild animal experience, the experience is going to vary. And there have certainly been groups that trekked further and saw less. I think my best advice would be that this is an experience for die-hard gorilla fans onot. It will be most rewarding for those people who are thrilled at the prospect of seeing any gorilla at all, rather than greedy folks like me who have unfairly idealized the experience. Also, get a porter and borrow the free walking stick. It was the best decision I made - Jerome carried my camera and hauled me up and down the mountain over some very challenging terrain.
not a great photo, but you can see the silverback’s silver back
some of the farmland we drove through on our way to the Impenetrable Forest
