Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park - Gorillas!! (Finally!)

Hmmmm...just what message is he trying to send? Lol. 

We were up early on Saturday, 9/23, for our first gorilla trek! We began at the park’s information center with a presentation including song and dance from a local non-profit, Ride 4 Women. After a briefing, we were assigned a guide and a gorilla family. Eddie drove us about 45 min to the starting place. We met our porters and set out through the thick rainforest. We had to cross two small rivers, but at least the bridges were intact this time! Lucky for us, we only trekked about 30 minutes before we found our gorillas!

Visitor's Center and Ride 4 Women.

Rog and Rian with our porters.

Over the river and through the woods....

The Habinyanja group had 12 members including a tiny infant, the youngest member of a habituated group. Our first contact was an amazing experience. The gorillas were sleepy after eating and just lazed around totally unconcerned about our presence. I was surprised at how close we were able to get, and the guides did a great job moving brush and vines so we could get photos. The mom and baby were napping about 10 feet away and I really enjoyed watching them.

We were assigned the Habinyanja Group.

One of the silverbacks just chilling.

Gorilla Paparazzi! They really were unconcerned.

The tiny infant, Mashuri, was just precious.

Mom was very attentive.

This group had two silverbacks, the alpha/dominate male and the previous leader of the group. The guides said it was somewhat unusual that the junior silverback had taken over the alpha role and allowed the previous leader, who assumed a subordinate role, to stay with the family group. However, it benefited the group because they now had two strong silverbacks to protect the family. The gorillas have few natural predators, but there are occasional conflicts with other gorilla groups. The alpha silverback kept tabs on the family members and on us, but for the most part he was kicked back and totally relaxed. 

Dominate silverback being groomed.

Close-ups of the two silverbacks. 

Female mountain gorilla.

Girl time.

Our second gorilla trek was scheduled for the next day and the morning followed the same script. We were assigned a different guide and gorilla family, the Katwe group. I really liked seeing the "family portrait" (below) so we could try to identify the individual gorillas we encountered. Instead of driving to another part of the park, we set out from the information center on foot. We walked for about five minutes down the road, a little past Buhoma lodge where we were staying, and the guide stopped. I thought he was going to give us another briefing, but nope, there was a young gorilla in a tree right next to the road! I think this must qualify as the shortest, easiest gorilla trek ever. Lol. The guides hacked a path further into the vegetation so we could get closer to the family group.

Today we were assigned the Katwe Group.

 

Ready to head out on a long (NOT!) trek with our porters.

Check out the size of this snail on the road!

Just a few minutes walk and we found our gorilla family!

Hello handsome!

The Katwe group was smaller, with eight members, the youngest a 3-year-old female, Miracle. This group also had two silverbacks and a naughty blackback male. At 12-years old, he definitely had some teenage attitude. He was also a bit of a bully and liked to vocalize and mock charge the tourists to get a reaction. He tried that with our group and the guide literally wagged his finger at him and told him to behave, which I found hilarious. He said his name, Karureeta, translates to Chaos Instigator or Troublemaker. Lol. The video clip shows him moving from two perspectives, so you can see how close to Rian he came. Luckily this was before he did his little charge, although Rian is still giving him some serious side-eye. Lol.

This is our little "Troublemaker". Lol.

     

 Video Clip (1 min): Trouble on the move. Lol.

This is 3-year-old Miracle, isn't she a cutie?

Miracle with her Mom.

                        

Video Clip (36 sec): Miracle coming for a hug.

        Video Clip (1:48): Katwe Gorilla Family - Lunchtime!

We had to move that afternoon to the Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp lodge, which was just down the road from where we were staying. We were sad to leave Buhoma Lodge, but we hadn’t been able to book another night there. On the upside, the move scored me an unofficial third gorilla encounter! Apparently, the new lodge was situated within the feeding area of the Katwe group. I was sitting in our tent/cabin writing blog notes when I heard a rustling behind the tent. I didn’t pay much attention to it, until I saw one of the guests walking along the side of our cabin. I asked him if there were gorillas outside, and he said yes. So, I grabbed my phone and went in search of my tribe. Lol.  (I've gotten a few of my videos to upload into the blog - fingers crossed these will work! Let me know if you like the embedded videos better than the YouTube links.)

That's our tent/cabin in the background.
Rest assured, I offered them an open invitation to visit. Lol.

We saw several members of the group, including one right behind our cabin. The silverback walked by on a path about 20 feet away. We moved around the property keeping them in sight for an hour or so. Then one of the lodge staff motioned for me to come in closer. He and I duck-walked through a tunnel the gorillas had made through the vegetation. The two silverbacks were to my left and a female was on the right - surrounded! Then the silverback vocalized and the staff said to stand very still and not make eye contact because he was judging us. After a few minutes the silverback started to come our way and I held my phone at my side and got a short video of him walking toward us and then moving into the vegetation. The staff asked if I was afeared, I said no, but my heart was certainly pounding. It was so freaking cool! Check out the last video for my unofficial encounter. 

This magnificent specimen walked right by me. 

A silverback and a juvenile dining at the lodge. lol.

So, as exciting and fun as our gorilla encounters have been, we were extremely disappointed to find out a few days ago that we will lose Eddie at the Rwandan border. I had deferred to our travel consultant as to whether we should keep the same guide or switch to a Rwandan guide when we left Uganda. There was some miscommunication about who our guide(s) would be, so when Evelyn said we had Eddie for the whole trip, I didn’t think anything of it. After we got to know him, we were thrilled but, sadly, she was mistaken.  Tomorrow we say a tearful goodbye to Uganda and Eddie. Sniff.  But don't leave yet, we have a whole 'nother country and more adventures in Rwanda coming up next!