I woke before dawn, too excited to sleep. If all went well I'd be kicking off the New Year by high-fiving mountain gorillas. Breakfast was mercifully quick, and Andrew
and I left Kisoro just as the first sign of light appeared in the sky. We needed to be at Bwindi’s Ruhija sector by
8:00am. If we were late I wouldn’t be able
to join the gorilla tracking group and my $500 permit would be forfeited.
The scenery between Kisoro and
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was beautiful – rugged hills covered with
small farms – but the roads were unmarked, unpaved and very rough. I
assumed Andrew knew where we were headed, but I had to discard that assumption
when he stopped to ask a small boy for directions. The boy told us we’d taken a wrong turn and
needed to go back. But the dirt road, a
single lane cut into the side of a steep hill, was too narrow for us to change
directions. We had to drive another ten
minutes before Andrew could find enough space to turn around. The day’s first wave of panic swept over
me: what if I’m too late?
After thirty stressful minutes
Andrew began to see landmarks he recognized.
It was a close call but we made it to the Ruhija trekking center right at
8:00am. While checking in I suffered a second
wave of panic when the clerk asked for my passport. Andrew had assured me that I only needed to
bring hiking shoes, a rain jacket, and a lot of water. “I didn’t bring my passport,” I said
sheepishly. The clerk complained to
Andrew.
“You didn’t bring your passport?” Andrew said,
flashing me a “What were you thinking?” look.
I told the clerk I knew all my
passport information – number, date of issue, date of expiration, etc. The clerk relaxed. Given that I could provide all the data he
needed to complete his paperwork, he let it slide that I couldn’t produce the passport
itself. But yikes… A second close call.
There were five other tourists in
my tracking group – a 50-year-old Dutch guy, a young couple from Canada, and a
young couple from Brazil. Everyone
looked fit. Our guide gave us a little
background and explained the rules. We’d
be tracking the Nshongi group (sometimes spelled Shongi). It was a relatively new group, habituated
only two years ago. It had 23 members,
including three silverbacks.
The guide told us that it could
take us anywhere from one to four hours of hiking to find the gorillas. If we did find them we would only be allowed
to stay in contact for one hour. And we
had to be prepared for the chance we might not be able to find them at all. That possibility triggered a third wave of
panic. Can you imagine how frustrating
it would be to come up empty after getting so close? The guide tried to make us feel better: “If we do not find the gorillas,” he said, “we
will refund half of your permit fee.” Some
consolation!
The guide recommended that
we each hire a porter. Really? A porter?
Each of us only carried a daypack with water, a sack lunch, a camera,
and a rain jacket. And we’d be out
for 10 hours at the most. The Brazilian
couple, who had tracked a different gorilla group the day before, strongly
agreed with the guide. “The porters
don’t just carry your backpack,” the Brazilian woman told us. “They push and pull you up the hills. They do everything.” I have to admit they almost scared me into it. But I came to my senses. The Canadian couple and I took a pass on the
porters.
I did, however, decide to use a
walking stick – something I’d sneered at in the past. It always seemed like more of a hassle than
it was worth. But wow, on that
particular hike it made a huge difference to have that walking stick. It was helpful almost constantly, and it
saved me from a major wipe-out more than once.
The people who named Bwindi added
the word “Impenetrable” for a reason. It
may be hyperbole – visitors are, after all, able to penetrate the park – but I’d
never hiked through more hostile terrain.
I thought trekking in the jungles of the Bokeo Nature Reserve in Laos and Gunung
Leuser National Park in Sumatra had been difficult, but Bwindi was worse.
Our hike started on a friendly,
level trail. But very quickly all signs
of flat ground disappeared and we began to climb. On treks I prefer to be at the very
front or the very back, and at first I walked in the back with our guide. Every now and then the guide used his mobile
phone to check in with the trackers who had gone out before us. So far the trackers hadn’t located the gorillas. I began to worry.
Hiking through Bwindi
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Our Trekking Group in Bwindi
If we weren’t slogging through the
mud we were trying our best to avoid stumbling over an unstable lattice of
roots and plants that had been mashed down on the trail. Without my walking stick I would have been on
my butt more than my feet. The humidity
drained us. Whenever the sun broke
through the clouds the jungle began to steam.
Ants burrowed under our clothes and bit us.
The steepest inclines were usually
covered with mud and we found it almost impossible to avoid slipping,
especially going downhill. Walking on
top of the vegetation wasn’t much better – the rope-like tendrils tripped us,
thorns cut us, and every now and then one of our legs slid through a hole in the net-like
carpet of vegetation and plunged us up to our waist in a tangle of green. Even the guides and trackers fell. I found myself wondering how much worse it
would be if it started raining.
Trackers Making a Path
A park ranger carrying an AK-47
hiked at the front of our group.
Deciding it would be a good idea to make friends with someone armed with
an automatic weapon, I caught up to him and started a conversation. His name was Abrahim (which he pronounced
ah-brah-HEEM), and he said he’d been working in the park for 11 years. I asked about his AK-47. “Have you ever had to shoot it?”
“Yes, but only into the air,” he
said. “To frighten elephants.”
Abrahim with His AK-47
Abrahim Hiking through Bwindi
At the top of a hill Abrahim pointed
to a steep downward slope in front of us.
“The gorillas are there,” he said.
“But the guide just told me the
trackers haven’t found the gorillas yet.”
Abrahim smiled. “I have been working in this park for many
years.”
And he was right. Thirty minutes later the trackers told the
guide that they’d located the gorillas, right where Abrahim said they’d
be. By that time we were very near. To close the remaining distance we had to
hack our own trail through the brush.
Hiking through Bwindi Impenetrable National
Park (Video)
The gorilla group moved
down-slope as we tracked them and we had to hurry to catch up. In a small clearing the guide halted and
pointed: a silverback. Literally a sliver back – a large adult male
faced away from us, his distinctive back clearly visible. A cracking sound alerted us to another gorilla
swinging from vines in a nearby tree.
Silverback
Gorilla in the Trees
The guide told us to drop our
backpacks. He said we were about to
enter the group, and he instructed us to stay at least seven meters away from
the gorillas at all times. Hacking with their
machetes, the trackers led us forward.
The vegetation was so thick we couldn’t see more than 10 feet in any
direction. And then we heard a loud
grunt, very near. The guide cut away some
branches, revealing a dark shape in the sea of green. A mountain gorilla so close we could see the
individual flies buzzing around her head.
Gorilla Surrounded by Flies
We weren’t supposed to spend more
than an hour with the gorillas, but the guide, ranger, and trackers let us stay
for over 90 minutes, and the gorillas were often much closer than the seven meter limit. Sometimes we spotted an individual gorilla,
other times a small group of two or three.
The vegetation always blocked our view.
Often there was only a single angle for a clear photo, and inevitably
the Dutch guy found that angle and stepped in front of me.
Gorilla Chewing a Leaf
Gorilla in the Jungle
Wild Mountain Gorilla Eating
Wild Mountain Gorilla Eating Leaves in Bwindi (Video)
For the first time on the trip I
let my camera stress me out. It’s common
for travelers to claim that taking photos diminishes the quality of an experience,
that if you’re taking photos you’re less there. But for me, taking photos usually enhances my
experience. It helps me connect with the moment.
This time, though, my camera
worked against me. Our time with the
gorillas was so limited that I put too much pressure on myself to get good
shots. And getting good shots was
extremely difficult under the circumstances.
The gorillas were almost always hidden by plants and trees. They moved fast. It was too dark, thanks to the jungle
canopy. And my fellow trekkers wanted to
get good photos, too. If I stood in
their way I felt guilty; if they stood in my way (as the Dutch guy always
managed to do) I felt frustrated.
Gorilla Behind Branches
Wild Mountain Gorilla Eating Leaves
Mountain Gorilla Close-up in B&W
Wild Mountain Gorilla Taking a Rest
Still… How incredible to be in the company of such
unique animals. We were able to get very
close. While I was shooting video of
a blackback (an immature male whose back has not yet turned silver), he ran
beside our group and passed within a few feet of one of the trackers.
Blackback Moving through the Jungle (Video)
Eventually our guide told us we
had to leave. The trackers had tried to
find the dominant silverback, but he was nowhere to be seen. We began heading back uphill when one of the
trackers signaled to the guide that the “Big Boss” had just appeared
nearby. The dominant silverback had
apparently decided to grant us an audience after all.
Nshongi Group’s Dominant Silverback
Close-up of Nshongi Group’s Dominant
Silverback (Video)
We wished the silverback a Happy
New Year and reluctantly left the group.
As the post-gorilla high wore off our thoughts began turning to the long
haul in front of us. It had taken us
almost four hours to find the gorillas and we’d need just as much time to hike
back. We battled our way through the
vegetation for an hour, stopped to eat our sack lunches, and then hit the trail
again. Eventually we noticed a line of
dark clouds on the horizon. “Is that
heading our way?” I wondered.
A tapping sound in the trees
above us answered my question. We had
less than a minute to put on our rain jackets before the sky released a
tremendous downpour. It rained for an
hour. Steep slopes that had already been
muddy were transformed into jungle slip-and-slides. None of us stayed upright for very long. Our pants and boots quickly turned an
identical shade of reddish-brown.
When we finally arrived back at
the entry gate my tank might not have been completely empty, but there’s no
question that the red warning light was blinking. I was exhausted. An experience like that is far more rewarding
when you have to earn it, and we definitely earned it. My legs were sore for the next three days. It was a New Year’s Day I’ll never forget.
The next morning Andrew and I
left Kisoro before dawn. Clouds had blocked my view of the Virunga volcanoes when we first arrived, but that morning the massive
volcanic cones were clearly visible. As we drove
up through the hills surrounding the town I had a chance to photograph
that amazing landscape in the ever-changing morning light.
Virunga Volcanoes Before Sunrise
Virunga Volcanoes Sunrise Panorama
First Light on the Virunga Volcanoes
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