On Thursday morning my dad and I flew to the southwest corner of Uganda where the Congo and Rwanda meet in the Heart of Africa. This is where the rain forest becomes an enormously fierce and cascading jungle, and is ruled by the mighty silverback gorilla, nearly wiped out by the greed of man. This land is as intimidating as water is wet, and leaves you with the impression that this is not only the Heart of Africa, but the Heart of the Earth. This place is called Bwindi, the English translation, "impenetrable darkness."
My dad and I arrived in the late morning after a two hour plane ride and an hour car ride along the Congo border. We stayed in an eight room tented lodge at the border of the community land and the jungle. The absolute lack of sound pollution to distract us from the nature made it the perfect place to relax. After a peaceful lunch we went on a guided community walk. On this walk we saw the tea farms, the local medicine man, a banana plantation where they made banana wine and gin, and a displaced Pygmy tribe that was evicted from the jungle and their way of life some thirty years ago. When we returned from the walk we had massages, dinner, and hot water bags in our beds to keep them all warm and cozy for us in the chilly night. The next morning we woke to some hot tea on the porch of our tent, and ate a nice breakfast before GORILLA TRACKING!
We took a twenty minute car ride to the point nearest to where the gorillas were seen the day before. From there, we walked up a steep hill on the community land where we reached the outskirts of the jungle which seemed to be straight out of the Disney movie Tarzan, but startling real.We then entered behind our guide who made us a trail with his sharp hacking tool, and it did not take us long to pick up the gorillas' path. We found their nests where they stayed the night before, and from there we followed the trail that they had made traveling like wrecking balls through the vegetation on the jungle floor. The gorillas were busy eating when we arrived, and seemed unfazed by our presence. There were nine of them in this particular family. The silverback was astounding! When he got up and walked toward us chills ran down my spine. He was the ultimate male specimen, but he was old and lazy and did not do much else for the hour we were there. There was a baby that was seven months old and so adorable. The others were fun to watch, for they just played around the whole time we were there while we stood hardly ten feet away. It was amazing watching the gorillas and the tracking through the jungle was also extremely cool.
We got back at two in the afternoon and relaxed the rest of the day under cover as the afternoon rains came downs making the jungle steam up like dry ice in hot water. Unfortunately we had to depart the following morning, and return to the much more tame part of Uganda.
