Gorillas!

Gorilla Day 1

Mixed emotions filled the air during this morning’s breakfast.  Everyone was quite excited about seeing the gorillas, but apprehensive about the climb necessary to reach them.  The mountain on which the gorillas live towers above our lodge.  During the previous night’s dinner, we were given a briefing about what to expect on the trek.  The trek could last as little as an hour and up to eight hours — it all depends on where the gorillas are each day.  Each family has a territory, but wander widely within that territory.  One porter would be provided to each of us to carry our day packs containing our rain gear, cameras, fleece (it is chilly in the morning), box lunch, water, and other assorted stuff.  We were also told the porters could help us up the mountain, either pulling or pushing.  All of this made us think this was a really difficult hike — thus the apprehension.

After breakfast we headed off to the park visitor center. There we were assigned to groups of eight people.  Each group was then assigned to a gorilla family.  Once a group comes upon the gorilla family to which they ere assigned, they can spend at most one hour observing the family members.  This way the visitors are spread out across the mountain and time is constrained so impact on the gorillas is minimized. Before we started the trek we were entertained by a group of children from a local school.  They performed a few traditional Uganda songs and dances.  

 We were very fortunate on our trek, after only about 2 hours of hiking we found the gorilla family we were seeking. Trackers go out at dawn to determine the gorilla family locations, so the trek guides have a pretty good idea of which trails will need to be followed. The hike up the mountain was not too bad, but the trekking through the forest was a bit more challenging because of uneven terrain, thorny underbrush and lots of vines perfectly positioned to catch a passing boot. 

We saw 12 different gorillas from our family — the silverback, his brother, his 2-year old son (who was just as curious as a human 2-year old), three other young ones, one other male and 5 adult females. We watched them eat, nap, wander in search of food and climb up into a tree to eat berries, a special treat for them. Gorillas need to eat constantly as they are completely vegetarian and it takes a lot of leaves to sustain those big bodies. These gorillas near the edge of the forest are habituated to humans, so while visitors are not to get too close to them, as long as we behave well they ignore us — on several occasions we were looking at one gorilla to find that another was walking through the high ferns right next to one of us. Both of us had moments when we could have touched one, but of course we did not!   The silverback may not have cared that we were there, but he was nervous about a neighboring family with which his frequently fights. He made small noises to call his family together, and then rose up to beat his chest with a short roar to announce his location. The rest of his family, as far as we could tell, ignored him. But his little son practiced the chest beating move, which was adorable. 

After a short rest at the lodge, several of us went to a local charity called Rides4Women, which helps victims of domestic abuse with skills training, English classes, safe housing and clean water. A gift shop sells their fabric and basket crafts to provide them with needed income. The crafts were beautiful and the equipment innovative.  For example they use a charcoal iron and foot pedal sewing machines so they are not dependent on electricity generation to do their work.