What’s Better Than One Gorilla Post?

9/20/09: Nkuringo, Uganda

This is a gorillapod.

It’s nice, lightweight and will definitely come in handy when Zhou and I don’t have anyone nearby to take photos of us around the world.

This is a gorilla pod.

See the difference a space makes?

…

Zhou described much of our experience in yesterday’s post, but I feel it bears repeating from my point of view. When we originally planned the trip, she was so adamant about seeing the gorillas that I didn’t voice my opinion too much. After all, there are things I want to do as well (Easter Island, skydiving in New Zealand), so our rule was that if one of us felt really strongly about something, we’d do it. I’ll be honest though, I wasn’t quite sure about this part of the trip.

First of all, permits cost $500 per person, and you only get one hour with the gorillas. That would make this the most expensive single day of our trip. Secondly, they’re just gorillas! I’ve seen them in the zoo, I think. Thirdly, it was very difficult to find a tour that fit our start (Nairobi) and stop (Johannesburg) criteria and still did the gorilla tracking.

I’m glad Zhou was so set on this.

There are only 720 mountain gorillas left in the world, including 345 in the Bwindi National Park that we hiked. We would wind up seeing 14 of them. For you English majors, that’s 14 out of 720. As a percentage of humans, that’s like seeing over 125 million people just chilling in a forest – the big ones watching mindfully while the smaller, younger ones play and poop on the elders’ backs.

Although the brochures said not to get closer than 21 feet from the gorillas to avoid the spread of germs (gorillas are humans’ closest relatives, sharing about 98.4% of genes), our guides found us a nice spot less than ten feet away. One of the silverbacks (older, dominant males) even walked within a foot or two of a member of our group.

The best part about it all though is that this is their environment, and we were just there enjoying it. If a gorilla wanted to go somewhere, we moved to let it pass. I felt kind of like a lowly intern in a big office meeting. Absorb your surroundings, but stay out of the big dogs’ ways. But this time the big dogs were 500 pound gorillas.

The hikes to and from the gorillas were far and away the most difficult of my life. Since the location of the gorillas changes every day, for much of the time we were blazing new trails up and down steep countryside. I’m so impressed with my wife, as she kept pace with our guide, who finished eighth in the 10K at the Ugandan Olympic trials. I could barely keep up myself.

Throughout the hikes, I made it a point to stop and enjoy the incredible scenery that the Ugandan mountainsides have to offer. My opinion probably doesn’t matter here because I’ve only visited about five countries, but Zhou called Uganda the most beautiful country she’s ever seen. I can’t argue with that.

So the next time someone hands you $500 and an otherwise all-expenses paid trip to Uganda, please please please go see the gorillas. You won’t regret it.

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Ohio Picture: A couple of guys at the office and I decided it would be fun to shoot these pictures throughout the world. The Os in this picture are the porters who came with us on the hike. Gordon Gee, if you’re reading this, you now have supporters in Nkuringo, Uganda… Go Bucks!

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Picture of the Day: Our tracking group (all from the Acacia overland tour that we’re on) standing on top of a mountain overlooking the Impenetrable Forest.

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Gorillas, or Why Zhou and Kevin Came to Africa

9/20/09: Nkuringo, Uganda

When Kevin and I planned this trip, the one thing at the very top of my must-do list was to see the gorillas. I wanted to see gorillas more than I wanted to do anything else. More than Machu Picchu, more than the pyramids, more than the Himalayas, even more than Thailand and mango sticky rice. So now that we were finally going to see the gorillas, you can imagine how nervous I was that I might be disappointed after having such high expectations.

But really, it’s not like anything you can imagine.

It was a really amazing and totally surreal experience. Even looking back on it now it’s hard to believe that it actually happened, except we have the pictures to prove it. I wish I could describe to you how it felt, but I can’t. The one thing I can tell you that comes close to explaining how it was is this: after we saw the gorillas and hiked back up to the top of the hill and I looked over at the forest, I was so overwhelmed by the experience we had and the beauty of the country that I started to cry.

I have never felt that way before.

A little bit on the logistics:

There are six gorilla families in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park that can be visited by people. Each family can only be visited once per day and only for one hour. The trackers go into the forest early in the morning to the place the gorillas were the day before. They then follow the path the gorillas took – if there is plenty of food, the gorillas don’t travel far; if there is little food, they may go more than a mile away from their last nesting site. They communicate with the guide via walkie-talkies. When they find the gorillas, the guide can then take the group on a shorter path straight to the gorillas. Besides the guide, there are also two guards with guns – one at the front of the group and one at the end. They are there to scare off any aggressive gorilla families (ones that haven’t been habitualized to humans) or any other aggressive animals (mountain elephants live in the forest as well, but we didn’t see any).

The gorilla family we visited was the Nkuringo family. We were lucky enough to see the biggest silverback (though I think he napped the whole time we were there), several of the younger males and the 9-month old twins. I wanted to take one of the twins home, but Kevin wouldn’t let me. I guess that’s for the best.

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Picture of the Day: Mr. Turtle does not get to meet the gorillas. He runs away in protest.

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