Mountain Gorillas

Uganda Gorillas

Location: Bwindi Impenetrable national Park

Our epic adventure to the Nshongi family of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Park started at the completely reasonable time of 4:30 Am when we crawled out of our tent to stumble around brushing our teeth and packing lunch. After ensuring our shirts where on right side out and our shoe laces were tied we hop into a 9 person van and start the 2.5 hour drive to the park office where we would check our permits and meet our guide. Now one might think that during this time you could catch up on sleep and relax before your hike. You would be wrong. Going at a speed that seemed way to fast we switched back and forth over what can be called roads (if you use a very broad definition of road). The van at times seeming to be scant inches from the edge of the drop off on one side. It was bumpy and full of gaps that I was sure would swallow the vehicle. Needless to say I didn’t get too much rest.  After arriving at the park office and checking the permits we met our guide Rita and our guard Adam.  Rita was a very friendly tiny girl who smiled a lot and was probably no older than I am, Adam was a quiet man with a large gun and a strawberry short cake bag (the cartoon from the 80’s not the actual cake). During our initial conversation with Rita she recommended we get porters to help us up the hill. When we were hesitant she insisted that she knew where we were going and our party of 8 would need at least 2. After informing us that the group yesterday didn’t get back from trekking till 9pm and at a price of 38000 Ugandan shilling each it seemed like we should take her advice.  So we set off in our van again with visions of an 8 hour hike dancing in our heads we headed off to the start of the mountain we would climb. On the way over just to make things more interesting our van very very nearly went over the edge. This time we for sure missed by about 1cm as we fishtailed in the mud and came face first with the edge of the cliff.  About 15 minutes after that shot of adrenalin we arrived at the starting point.

At a first glance it looked nothing like you would expect a hike to look like. To start with we were on top of a hill and there were houses and farms all around us… interesting. As it turns out we had to climb down the terraced farm field paths first before we could start climbing back up. Before setting off we got handed some walking sticks and shuffled into a walking order,  Rita telling us the Big Tracy (me) should be in front to set the pace…  So still feeling great about that complement and after about 1 hour of stumbling down slippery mud paths with louse rocks I was having a hard time. At some point my brain decided it was going to panic and I found myself unable to breathe well or calm down no matter what I tried.  Needless to say it was going to be a long day. On the way down the hill we passed farmers, cows and a hut where they told us pigmies lived.  Once we reached the bottom of the first hill it was time to cross the first… bridge? Log? Half a dozen half submerged rotted logs that liked to move and roll in a marsh… yeah that’s the one.  This was the first time the porters really came in handy leading a strong hand and really remarkable balance to us as we tried not to fall into the mud around us. After crossing a small flat part we went over another bridge? But this time it was almost bridge like… they had taken some logs and nailed a railing to one side…. Not well and not very solidly but they put in the effort… and it was almost half a meter out of the water. So… good hustle.

At this point the real fun started. After putting on long shirts finding gloves and tucking our pants really stylishly into our socks we entered the forest.  The first thing I noticed was the ridiculous abundance of butterflies, this may seem insignificant but not only were they pretty but at points trying to see one almost caused me to fall off the mountain. We began our trek up what can reasonably be called a path. It was just shy of vertical. If I had to guess it was about an 80 degree slope I have been up latters that had a gentler angle. For the most part it was about an hour of this slight path with roots and vines crossing it. Trees to jump over and slippery mud with large rocks to jump up or down. The sort of path followed right along the edge of the hill and you at many points had just slightly more than enough room to place both feet side by side between the hill to one side and the drop off to the other side. It was about this time I started to use the friendly helping hand of our porter Francis. Basically this man is the reason I got up the hill. Just having somebody’s hand to hold helped me to calm down a little bit.  He kept telling me I would make it and not to worry, it is very nice to have a personal cheering squad. Not to mention the very real physical help he gave me with balance and guiding me to put my feet on stable ground and helping pull me up the really steep bits.

At 2 hours into this adventure I was fairly sure this was the most physically demanding thing I had ever done. I was wrong. The next 2 hours would be the most physically demanding thing I have ever done.  After passing our 2^nd large downed tree and having experienced at least 3 sets of biting little bastard safari ants we got to the hard part. Yes the hard part. Everything up to this point was comparatively easy. Because up until now we had had something that resembled a path. Now at 2 hours in we were faced with the true impenetrable forest. To call what we followed next a shitty path is really an insult to self-respecting shitty paths all over the world. At its best it was slightly bent branches and reads that looked like they may have been stepped on once before. But often there was not even that. For a bunch of it we were just picking the clearest looking way through the trees and trying that. At other points we just hacked branches off and vines out of the way to get through.  For much of the next 2 hours we were walking strait up and kind of switch backing a little bit to just not fall off the hill.  Really it is hard to give you a full idea of this part of the trip. Picture on one side of you a slightly slanted wall covered in vines trees behind you trees on the wall and green everywhere you look. Plants and vines on the ground under you and somebody telling you that now you need to go straight up. Oh great. That is no problem at all. Mostly I kept my head down looking at my feet. Just looking far enough ahead to plan the next huge step I would need to take or the next tree I could grab onto. Every time I looked up basically I came face to face with extremely steep slope that if you believe hard enough you could imagine had places you could put your feet or your stick to not just slide all the way back to the bottom. The vegetation was spectacular the trees and bushes were extremely thick but the vines… the vines. They were both a help and a hindrance. At times they were tripping you and grabbing onto your legs and ankles. At others you were grabbing onto them just to stay upright and get to the next foot hold. It was about 20 minutes into this part of the climb that the helicopter ride they mentioned at the beginning for if you couldn’t make it started to sound like a much Much better idea than this. After about 1.25 hours of slogging up the side of the mountain we started to hear the trackers in the distance they would kind of hoot at us and our guide would call back to them giving us an idea of the direction we needed to head. About 10 minutes later we found what our tracker told us was fresh gorilla poop. I must say that I have never been so excited to see poop in my whole life.  At this point there started to be cut marks in the trees and we basically went from one tree to the next following the rout the trackers took up to the gorillas. Soon after this one of the trackers met up with us and helped to guide us the rest of the way. I was excited now but was still not convinced I would make it. At one point I really wanted to stop and have a rest for a minute but Francis grabbed me by the arm and basically dragged me up the last 20m, I don’t know how I kept up it felt like he was running up the hill. When he finally let me stop I looked up and could see 2 gorillas walking about 10 m up from me in the trees. I started crying. I had really been convinced I would not make it. They were spectacular.  It took about 5 minutes for the rest of the group to catch up with us and we made our way up the last few meters to where we could see the family. 

When we walked into the almost clearing (if by clearing you mean 3 feet in 3 directions around a tree that had comparatively few vines and bushes in it) everybody’s jaw dropped.  To one side we had 2 gorillas hanging out at the bottom of a tree with the baby climbing around in the top. To the other side we have a fallen tree by us and half a foot beyond that on a fallen log there was about 5 gorillas just chilling.  About 5 minutes after we arrived we witnessed 2 silver back males have a bit of a growl at each other, this was defused by the head silver back coming over and showing his teeth at them so they backed down. The head of the family then went to sit on the log surrounded by his haram of females. Over the course of the hour we spent with the gorillas we got to watch them sleeping in the grass eating trees and wrestling with each other. We got to see the baby swing around on vines and generally make a nuisance of himself. There was one gorilla in particular that was intent on stealing our bags, so Adam kept scaring him off. Mostly we stood in awe staring at these massively huge powerful creatures who really for a lot of it looked board or sleepy. I think the most amazing part was how expressive their faces were. It was eerily close to most human expressions.  In total we got to see 16 of the 24 gorillas in the family including 4 silverbacks and one baby. The Nshongi family we climbed to see was the largest but was also the highest. At a height of 2000m up they were as high as gorillas usually go and basically at the top of the mountain.  By the one hour mark we were surrounded by gorillas, the ones in front of the log were still close enough to touch, but we had acquired gorillas behind us in the trees plotting to get to the bags, and on both sides just chilling and eating trees. After what seemed like way less than an hour our guide told us it was time to leave them alone and start heading back.

It was approximately 30 seconds after this that we heard ominous rumbling in the distance. We all went to our packs and put on rain pants and jackets. Just as we all finished putting on our rain gear the rain started. Big, fat drops of rainforest rain…. Yeah. Going down was going to be interesting.

In the interest of being fair I have to mention that there was one good point to the rain. The biting burrowing safari ants that had burrowed and crawled down shirts, up pant legs and through socks or gloves were mostly absent in the rain.  The vines that covered the ground became unbelievably slick and I developed a death grip on my walking stick. At times it was only that stick that kept me from falling face down the whole mountain.  The ground was muddy, wet and unstable. More or less you could not step anyplace somebody else had already stepped because it was a slid shoe print with no stability. The guides told us to try and step above where the last person had slid down but this was only marginally effective. For the most part we slid down the hill from vaguely flattish stable spot to the next. Well that was the idea anyhow. For a lot of it we just fell down parts of the mountain and grabbed onto the nearest convenient vine, tree or person to stop and then took a few more steps to the next slide and continued.  We spent the next 2 hours effectively falling down a mountain. In this situation the bushes ended up being a bit of a help as they added stability to the slope and gave just a little bit of grip as we stumbled along.  At one point while walking up a downed log one member of our party. For the sake of argument we will call her the little Tracy fell off. More like launched off the log really. Became air borne and fell head first into a tree. I had been standing a few inches in front of her and as she screamed I turned around in time to see most of it. The guard, guide and one of the trackers that had joined us ran down the hill to help her up.  Luck was on our side and she was not hurt badly. She had banged her head a bit but seemed fine to continue till the end.  It took far less time to fall down the mountain then it had taken to climb up it. We made it to the river and sketchy bridge number 2 in what felt like no time at all. It was just over an hour. Now we took a short break, striped off some of the rain gear and gloves then set off across the sketchy bridges and onto the uphill part at the end. I feel like putting a steep uphill climb at the end of a day full of steep uphill climbs is a particularly cruel joke to play on somebody.  In the end we all managed to drag ourselves back up the farm terraces and pigme huts to the top of the hill.

Here we got certificates from the guides signifying that we had survived the day. We were then introduced to the t-shirts that Adam had been carrying in the strawberry shortcake bag and a few of us bought them. We said good bye and took some pictures of the mud covered soaked messes we were.  It was now 6 pm and time for the 2 hour drive home.

This drive seemed to take forever. Back down the windy almost roads and through the narrow switchback turns we went. It was so bumpy and I was so worn out that for the first time in years I actually started to feel car sick. Fortunately by this point we were only about 10 min from the camp and we got out of the van to cheers from our fellow adventures…. Some of whom had not gone trekking that day… and the others who got back by 3…. By 3… seriously we had just made it up the hill at that point. This meant we had the bragging rights.

Freezing cold cut the water had soaked through or under my rain gear I nibbled on some food then went to have what I was really hoping would be a hot shower…. Nope.

The best thing I can say is it was not an ice cold shower. So grit my teeth and tried to very quickly remove the parts of the forest that had decided to come home with me. After sitting by the fire to warm up and dry my hair I fell into bed.

At the time of writing this some 26 hours after arriving back at camp my legs and in particular the muscles above my knees are still stiff and stairs have become more challenging than usual. Also I seem to have a sore right arm from the death grip I had on my stick and can hardly even make a fist. Still sitting here in front of a fire hurting far far less than I thought I would, I can say with complete sureness that was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Man was it worth it. We may have climbed 4 times as high as the other group but we also got to see 4 times the gorillas. It is quite the story and back on the ground I am glad for how challenging it was. The struggle made the reward and the pride at succeeding so much the greater. It was an amazing day and I am really not sure how to top it. 

 pictures later when I have more then 10 minutes for them to upload