The Impenetrable Forest

We left Kisoro and headed back up a really windy mountain road towards Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, one of Uganda's oldest and most biologically diverse rainforests.  It dates back over 25,000 years and is home to an estimated 320 mountain gorillas – roughly half of the world’s population and one of our main attractions on this trip.  The drive up was beautiful and quite possibly the nicest scenery we’ve seen since arriving in Uganda.  As you approach the “impenetrable forest,” the rolling hills quickly change over to thick trees and we were almost immediately greeted by some black-and-white colobus monkeys.  A fun sight, though we have seen a lot of them (they are turning into the monkey version of squirrels) and were amped to see some gorillas.

The scenery on the drive from Kisoro to Bwindi.

They farm up on the sides of the mountains.

Entering the "impenetrable forest."

A family of black-and-white colobus monkeys.

There are four different areas within the park where you can track habituated mountain gorillas and we chose Ruhija, which is on the eastern side of the park.  We arrived bright and early the morning of our trek and were paired with an older group of Europeans and a Canadian woman.  Interestingly, one of the men from Britain had been with the British Foreign Services for 40 years before retiring, it was nice to chat with him and his wife and hear of their many great adventures abroad.

Our group was assigned to the Oruzoojo gorilla family and after a quick briefing on how to interact with the gorillas, we loaded up the cars and headed off to the starting point.  This was the first time (but definitely not the last) that we would have a ranger with a loaded AK-47 sit in our car.  This time, unlike other times, he was sitting right next to me which made the drive that much more interesting.  After a 30-40 minute drive, we pulled off near some tea plantations, met the porters, and started our trek into the forest.  This hike wasn’t nearly as strenuous as the Mt. Sabinyo one was.  However, it wasn’t easy navigating through the muddy and slippery terrain, especially when you’re short and have little legs, and you’re going up and down huge embankments every 5 minutes.  Other than that, the 3 of us were doing fine, as was the rest of the group…minus the Canadian woman.  First off, who decides to hike through the “impenetrable forest” in all white?  Not only that, but she could barely walk on a paved surface and here we are trekking through the forest, not on any kind of path.  Needless to say, she was slowing us down a lot before she even took her first tumble.  Eventually, the head guide had a talk with her and it was decided she needed a rescue team.  While she and some porters waited for the rescue team, the head guide led us on towards the gorillas.  After 2 or so hours, we came around a bend and met up with the gorilla spotters.  These guys had trekked the path earlier and were directing our guides on how to reach them.  Once the group was all together, we left behind our walking sticks and bags, then headed over to the gorillas.

The first three gorillas we could see were the silverback, a mommy, and her 9-month-old baby (the youngest in this family).  Unfortunately for us, they were hidden in a decent amount of bushes and branches.  We were still able to get a few good shots (for all our pictures check out our SmugMug), but watching the baby climb all over its mother and repeatedly fall over was adorable.  At one point the mom even wrapped the little one up in her arms and was rubbing it with her hands.  Out of our entire time with the gorillas, this was quite possibly my favorite moment as you could see the love between mother and baby.

Baby climbing all over mom.

How can you not love that face?

After a little while, the gorillas decided it was time to move on and one by one they made their way out of the underbrush and down the hill.  Interestingly, the silverback waited until every member of his family made it down before following suit.  The guides told us to follow and began hacking through the brush with their machetes as we followed the gorillas down a hill.  Thankfully, they stopped at a nearby clearing to chomp away on some tree bark.  Here we got some awesome shots of them out in the open and it was cool to be standing so close to such magnificent creatures.  One of the guides tried to move a branch away and got a little too close for the gorillas liking and they grunted and moved towards him.  A little scary as Greg and I were standing right next to the guy, but thankfully he immediately stopped and backed up and that seemed to be good enough for the gorillas.  What a shame the Canadian lady missed out on this experience right?  Wrong!  As we are checking out the gorillas enjoying a bark snack, the lady shows up and is helped down the hill by some porters.  How in the world did she get to us you may ask.  Well, the rescue team wasn’t an extraction team.  Rather, they were the support team and had carried the lady on a cloth stretcher through the forest to the gorillas.  The path was difficult enough for most people, so I have no idea how they were able to carry her through the muddy path to us.

The silverback!

Munching on some tree bark.

After a while here, the gorillas were done with their tree bark (also possibly agitated that we followed them) and again headed into the forest.  We thought our time with the gorillas was over, but the guides continued after the gorillas into a denser part of the woods.  We climbed a steep hill and found the silverback and his family up in the trees.  Next thing we know, the trees and bushes behind us are shaking, there’s all this commotion, and the porters pop through with the woman on the stretcher again.  She was almost more of a sight to see, but she probably would have been more adverse to the flash photography then the gorillas.  We spent a little longer with the gorillas and finally started back to the cars.

Gorilla in the trees.

The lady on the stretcher with all the porters.

The experience was definitely a once in a lifetime activity.  It was fun and I’m glad I can check it off my list, but I don’t think I need to make the trip down there again.  We originally planned to go during the rainy season because it’s much cheaper, however, I’m kind of glad we didn’t because it hadn’t rained here at all the week before our hike and it was still rather muddy and difficult to navigate.  I can’t begin to imagine how the hike would have been during the rainy season.  After two big hikes, we finally got a much needed night to sleep in before making the next leg of our trip up to Ishasha, the southernmost part of Queen Elizabeth National Park.