Bwindi
Impenetrable Forest
– the name itself (while technically untrue) has an air of mystery, an allure
that conjures up images of a vine-choked jungle, a chattering canopy, a distant
rustle of an unseen animal.
Visiting Bwindi and its mist-covered hills with Mom, Paul, and Kris was one of the amazing, precious times when reality lived up to my imagination.
Leaving in the dawning light of the early morning to go
gorilla tracking, we followed our guide through the dense brush for hours,
slipping on vines as we clambered through the path he left with his deft, sure
machete hacks. Two armed military members brought up the front and rear and a
porter tailed close behind us – a small, local woman carrying a backpack of our
food and water almost half her size, offering up her tiny hand to guide me down
through the hollowed-out tree that my taller, broader, exercise-5-days-a-week
self couldn’t seem to get up the energy to get through. As I almost collapsed
into her arms, three hours into our trek, we exchanged grins and I thought for
the millionth time how ridiculous it was that there wasn’t some sort of fitness
requirement for foreigners to do this. The local villagers accompanying us were
barely breathing heavily – the guard behind me had the impressive, admirable,
but slightly-irksome habit of pausing to take in the scenery while I trekked 15
minutes ahead of him and then dashing down the hill, around and over trees to
catch up with me in about 1 minute, stopping just before he ran full-tilt into
me. I, however, had two hands wrapped around my walking stick and was using it
to drag myself forward, inwardly starting to debate with myself about how many
people it would take to carry me out in one of those woven stretchers they have
when I collapsed.
Our amazing porter, Immaculate.
Bwindi is one of Uganda's oldest and most biologically diverse rainforests, home to 400 species of plants, 120 mammals including baboons, chimps, antelopes, and elephants, 350 species of birds, and half of the world's mountain gorilla population.
But then our guide, after chatting on his walkie talkie to
the trackers ahead and checking his GPS, announced that we were almost to the
gorillas and I caught my second wind. As we carefully navigated our way down
what could more accurately have been described a cliff than a hill, I strained
to discern some sort of gorilla-like sound from the hoots and calls all around
us, sure that they were behind the very next tree. Yet it wasn’t until almost
an hour later (good trick, guide) that we finally heard an echoing, bellowing
sound. Exchanging excited glances, we looked to our guide for confirmation and
he gave us a big grin – we were there.
We met up with the two trackers who had been ahead of us,
trying to locate the gorilla group for the day for a visiting research group. We
left our supplies and walking sticks with them and moved cautiously forward
with our guide, coming to stand on a steep slope covered in thick undergrowth.
Our guide hacked down a screen of plants in front of us with his machete and there,
behind it, not twenty feet from us, was a female gorilla with her infant. As we
stood there, entranced by the mother holding her baby in one hand and using the
other to help her rip branches apart with her teeth, we realized that we were,
in fact, surrounded. A male gorilla rested in nettle leaves to our left; two
more gorillas wandered on the hill above us; a silverback called to his group,
responses coming from every direction; a baby gorilla tumbled down the incline,
crushing small trees and plants in his path, rolling to a stop and jumping up
joyfully. All in all, we were in the midst of a gorilla group of more than
twenty members.
Newborn mountain gorillas are tiny. They weigh about four
pounds and are able only to cling onto their mother’s fur. They ride on her
back starting at about four months until they are two or three years old.
Young gorillas, from three to six years old, spend most of
their day playing – climbing trees, chasing one another, swinging from
branches, and rolling down hills.
Gorillas are herbivores and can eat up to 66
pounds of food a day!
There are only about 700 mountain gorillas remaining on
Earth. They live in the green volcanic slopes of Uganda,
Rwanda,
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The alpha male is usually a silverback – the hair of older
adult males turns a distinctive silver as they mature – and leads the group with
impressive shows of physical power. Mountain gorillas stand four to six feet
tall, can live for 40 – 50 years, and weigh from 300 to 485 pounds!
Certificates are a big deal in Uganda (smiling for pictures is not). Here we are, "graduating" from gorilla tracking!
It was like every dream I had as a kid that involved
researching animals, being Jane Goodall or Diane Fossey, living in the wild –
it helped that we had two real-life scientists right next to us, actively
engaged in the work that I avidly read about in elementary school. I could
almost pretend that this was my career too, spending days among the gorillas,
filling a notepad with precise observations as I also mused about the social
life of these impressive, massive animals, affectionately naming each one,
celebrating their victories and mourning their losses along with them.
As we stood along a beat-down path, lined up, I noticed a
silverback beginning to move all the way to my left. I started filming, hoping
I could get a picture of him walking around, when all of a sudden, he sped up.
The guide pulled me back as the male sprinted by Kris, lashing out with his
legs in two vicious kicks. Kris stumbled but remarkably kept his balance (must
be all those times he got kicked in Capoeira). The gorilla continued running,
right towards Paul, who had his back turned watching a gorilla farther up the
slope. We softly cried out warnings, but it was too late – the silverback
hip-checked Paul in passing, sending him sprawling to the ground after getting
hit with the equivalent of a 350-pound sack of bricks. Paul lay on the ground, stunned, unsure
whether or not he was injured. I knew I had just the thing to bring him out of
his shock: “Hey Paul! I got that on video!” The two scientists chuckled next to
me. “Now that’s a story!”
After we hit the time limit we were allotted to spend with
the gorillas, who are habituated but still wild, we began the slightly shorter
two and a half hour hike back to the park center. Exhilarated and exhausted by
our encounter, we dug deep to find the energy to get back, teasing each other
as we went.
“Looks like the girls are smart and fast enough to get out
of the way of a 350-pound gorilla!”
“Looks like the boys are the only ones who got to touch a
gorilla!”
We finally made it back to the lodge, changing out of our
sweaty clothes and slumping on the front porch of the main building with the
beers that the hotel staff had put in the icebox for us that morning. I could
feel my body already starting to stiffen in the cooler, high-altitude
temperatures, tighten up in that wonderful way that meant I had pushed it as
hard as I possibly could. I sank back into my chair while we sipped our beers –
and Kris sipped his water – enjoying the view of the sunset over the forest and
the broad swath of rich green terrace farming beyond. As I glanced over and saw
Mom, Paul, and Kris slowly nodding off, I smiled, picked up by book, and put my
feet up on the wooden railing – one of the best days ever.
Our rewards.
Dreaming of mountain gorillas.
“It is the peace of
the forest that I carry inside.”
– Jane Goodall
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