Uganda – Second Gorilla Trek

For our second gorilla trek we left our accommodation early in the morning and we had an amazing view of the mist in the valley as we climbed the mountain towards Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

There’s a reason Bwindi Impenetrable Forest has its name and trekking there was extremely physically hard. The terrain meant that we were following in single file behind a ranger who was hacking his way through the foliage. Some very steep ‘ups and downs’, with some big steps needed, and also balancing on a log to cross a river! It was shallow, but fairly fast running with a section covered in giant ants that we had to hurry over. (Not so easy on a wet and slippery log!) At one point on the trek, I had a ranger pulling me up from the front, and a porter pushing me up from behind and everyone fell over at least once With ants biting me through my socks, dripping with sweat, giant stinging nettles and head height foliage it was a real challenge. I wondered how we would ever manage to see the gorillas through the greenery, but when we found them the rangers were really good at hacking down the leaves near to us so that we could have a better view.

I’ve included the photo below to show how hard it is to find and see the gorillas.

I was glad I’d taken my zoom lens as he was on a hillside the other side of a river.

This one was only a few feet away from us.

Almost completely hidden but the sunlight just caught one of his eyes.

This baby and adolescent were constantly playfighting.

Say Cheese!

A big silverback was relaxing and we were able to get within about 20 feet of him.

This little baby was practicing beating his chest which was very amusing to watch.

Climbing up a tree gave us a good clear sighting.

It was definitely worth the effort, and I can now tick ‘gorillas in the wild’ off my list 🙂

That’s my Uganda blog posts all done.  I’ll end with one of my random arty shots, taken near our volunteer accommodation.   It was a great trip and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone considering combining a gorilla trek with some volunteering.  Details for the company I used are here.