Travel story: meeting gorillas
When I first booked my two-month Africa trip, I had the option of not including the gorilla trek. At first I thought, of course I’m not doing that. It’s 1600 USD extra. It cannot be that special. Little did I know. I talked to my mom about it actually, and she wanted to shake my head and yell, because she obviously knew how special it is to go on a gorilla trek.
“Please, if you have the opportunity, you have to take it”, she pleaded. And so I did some more digging. Apparently, you can only do mountain gorilla trekking in three countries, two of which I was going to, and apparently it is a big deal. So I quickly changed my mind, bit the sour apple and decided to include the gorilla trekking, and I would not be sorry.
It was October by the time my group got to Uganda. It was a rugged country, with lush rainforests, mountains and banana-trees covering the earth everywhere the eye could see. An utopian image really. It was so green, and so friendly. All around us, people were filled with smiles. The first thing we did when we got to Uganda was to go on a chimpanzee trek, which really set the tone for the rest of the trip to the country. It made all of us that much more excited for when we could go see the gorillas. It was pretty much all anyone of us ever talked about; “How cold do you think it will be?”, “have they ever attacked anybody do you think?” “how long do we have to walk for?” I think we all knew very little going into this, and so the briefing the night before really set our minds at ease. Especially when the rangers told us that if a baby gorilla were to come and play with us that was okay, but we could never make the first initiative. I’m sorry, what? They actually come out and play with you? Yes, a lucky few apparently. Oh, I spent that entire night wishing a baby gorilla would come up to me.
The next day we got up very early, around 3 am. We had all prepared our stuff beforehand, and all we had to do was climb into the vans, and sit there for a couple of hours as they drove us deeper and deeper into the forested mountains.
When we got to the base, we got another briefing, were split into groups and started walking. Now, this was maybe the worst part, as no one really knew how long we had to walk for. We had heard nightmare-tales of people who had to walk for more than 7 hours in the wild bush to get to see them. We started walking on a pretty clear path for about 20 minutes, before we started moving in to the bush. Another ten minutes passed, and then the bush got se dense, the rangers had to walk in front of us, and clearing the way with machetes. Because of this, we walked very slowly. Also because there were branches and trees everywhere, and it was so steep I almost fell down several times. I got worried I would fall down the entire mountainside, but everyone helped each other out, and about 30 more minutes of this, we finally heard the ranger say “the gorillas are here”. We looked around us, and the rangers started laughing. “no, not here, a bit further in, but you must prepare yourself, you will see them in 2-3 minutes”. This got us all very excited. There was a silent battle of who would be standing in line first, and sadly I lost and got positioned last, because I had to quickly before go pee.
We all steered in one line, trying to keep our balance over all the leafs and branches creating an intricate path up to what seemed like almost a look out point. The rangers pointed up to one of the trees, and law and behold there were three gorillas up in the trees. Because the look out point was carved out of the mountainside, and the trees were at another plateau below ours, we were face to face in height with the gorillas. The rangers explained that the are usually on the ground, and we were very lucky to be seeing them in the trees, as it is quite rare. However, I think we all were left feeling a little disappointed, as surely now no baby gorilla would climb all the way down the tree, and then all the way up to our plateau to play with us. However, it was truly magnificent seeing them in the trees as well. Seeing what seems like incredibly heavy animals balancing on thin branches to get something to eat. It’s not what you see every day, that’s for sure.
The silverback was also up in the tree, and he even took a quiet snooze as we were standing there snapping away photos. He seemed unbothered to say the least. I tried desperately to get a good look and a good picture in spite of the whole group standing in front of me. After about half an hour I felt a slight prick on my shoulder. It was one of the rangers. He pointed behind him, and didn’t say a word. I was the first one to see what was unfolding in the back, as the others in front were busy with the silverback. And there, on the ground in front of us on the plateau there was a mother gorilla and her tiny tiny baby clampering on her chest. They were both looking straight at me, and the whole jungle filled with this incredible silence. I didn’t even take a picture at first. I was just trying to appreciate this moment, this eyecontact with one of our closest ancestors. Those big black eyes, I could not spot one ounce of fear for us. The ranger ushered me to get closer, and I got so close as to only be about 2-3 meters away, before the rest of the group caught on to what was going on. They all turned and gasped, and the noises that followed made the momma gorilla walk down the mountain side, and in a flash she was gone. I did get a fair few pictures, but none of them will manage to depict the feeling I had in that moment. “Did you get a photo of them?” “Please you must send to me” “Did you manage to get one of the baby?” the group desperately asked. I guess being placed in the back isn’t always such a tragedy after all.
