Tracking Mountain Gorillas

Crawling out from under the mosquito net at 4.45am was made much more exciting knowing that today was one of the days we had planned and looked forward to for months and months.At 5.30am we began our two hour drive to Bwindi, winding around the lake, through towns and up mountains.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is solely in Uganda and home to many different families of mountain gorillas. It is one of two locations where gorillas live with chimpanzees. There are 12 families who have encountered humans, 3 of which receive human visitors daily. The gorilla population here is increasing- there are now 880 gorillas worldwide.

After arriving we were briefed by our guide:

Stay 9m away from gorillas, depending on terrain (great visual guide)

Take a porter if needed for $15usd (we didn’t)

Grab a walking stick (awesome tip!)

Stylishly tuck you pants into socks to stop fire ants biting (essential)

Everyone was split into three groups and given an assigned gorilla family, guide and armed escort (incase we were charged by and elephant, they could fire into the air). As we were a group of 27-30 year olds we were given the family with the hardest terrain.

Trackers go out to find the families each morning, but when we left, none had been found. We heard of a group a few days before that didn’t return until 9pm!

The trackers go to where they left the gorilla family the day before. From here, they look for snapped branches, flattened areas and scat (poo) which allows them to find the nest where the gorillas slept that night. They then follow the new trail until they find the family.

Our trek set off and as soon as we jumped out of the 4×4 we were all invaded by fire ants- thankfully our pants were tucked in!

There was a reasonable trail but our guide, Albert, new the park and terrain so well we wouldn’t have needed it. My favourite tactic for the steep, muddy downhill bits was a controlled slide. I landed on my bum a few times, but who cares- we were off to see gorillas!

After about an hour, we saw our first gorilla up high in a tree! We were supposed to stop and be briefed again 200m out from the gorillas but this didn’t happen as they were already close!

The sticks were ditched as the gorillas don’t like them and we now walked on top of thick vines as the trackers used machetes to cut a way through.

We were able to spend an hour with the gorillas, which goes incredibly fast! Looking into their eyes you can see how intelligent these magnificent creatures are.

The Kyagurilo family has 20 individuals (the sign hasn’t been updated!), and we were privileged to see 11 of them. The silverback sat surrounded by his throne of leaves as he munched away reasonably hidden.

There were mum’s feeding and young ones playing. They fed, slept, climbed and interacted, not minding at all that we were there!

My favourite moments were:

A juvenile ran to within a meter of me to play! I started talking to him/her and he/she stood there listening to my strange sounds and thinking. I’m surprised I even got a photo, as that was a moment where the camera was put away!

Two juveniles were tumbling around then one found a hanging vine and swung around on it. The next one followed soon after! Craig got an awesome video of them.

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