About this blog: Gorilla trekking at Bwindi National Park is an experience of a lifetime, albeit at a steep price-point. Much of the park fees goes into conservation effort that safeguards the dwindling Gorilla populace of the Virunga region. I researched for years and visited Uganda to see the Gorilla. As an obese person, trekking gorilla experience features as one of my top most travel ever.
Read more on my Uganda Travel Adventures here.
Also read: How to plan a trip to Uganda- Complete travel guide
The Bwindi national park is Uganda’s Koh e Noor of the 10+ National Park crown. The massive rainforest spread over 120+ sq KM area. It shares border with Volcanic national park in Rwanda and Virunga Mountains in Congo, erstwhile Zaire. Bwindi has been home to Mountain Gorillas for millennia.
This part of Africa is primate wonderland.
You have Bonobo matriarchs residing at one side of Congo river while the Chaotic chimps claim the other side. The patriarch Silverback peacefully share the jungle with other animals in Gorilla-land, even leopards.
Then humans arrived and things got complicated with the advent of civilization and greed for resources. They mined deep into earth and found gold. They say nasty stuff like, “Who cares about the Gorilla, it is just a monkey.”
And the story of the gorillas started to change.
Bwindi had seen tumultous days when Mountain Gorilla number dwindled to filmsy few hundreds.
It bounced back only when UN intervened, assigned UNESCO status to the jungles of the region, trained and educated locals, many of whom had been poachers in previous years.
The issue with Mountain gorillas is they can not survive in captivity. They need their rainforest to thrive. Hardly ever they have left their promised land, not even at the face of aggression by humans who find the volcanic soil fertile for the plantain farms.
Many people want to keep the head of a Silverback as souvenir at home. Our guide said, bushmen wanted the fur coat of gorilla to protect themselves from harsh cold.
Nothing justifies the carnage that took a huge toll to gorilla population. It took years of work, goodwill and training to turn the local population to actively try to save the gorillas. Now the numbers are closer to 1000 in the region, with 400 to 500 remaining in Uganda roughly. I have seen similar successful conservation stories in Kaziranga of Assam, where the one horned rhino was brought back from the brink of extinction.
However, Mountain Gorillas know this mountain range by the Albertine rift as their only abode.
A single pandemic, natural disaster or a regional warfare can wipe this species from the face of the earth. Which is why it is all the more pertinent to save the gorilla, especially with tourism wrapped under conservation efforts.
You may come to a face to face encounter with the elephants of Bwindi National Park. They are majestic but may disrupt your trekking route.
“They will come during Christmas!” Said my guide who took me for a tour to the Batwa village.
Really?
He could sense a tinge of disbelief in my voice and stated that I can ask anyone.
There would be fresh plantain and fresh produce off the farm during Christmas. They will come. They drink the liquor made of plantain!
I almost lost my Sh*t!
Mountain gorillas are fascinating. I have been to a few safari and seen the wildlife across the world, but Africa is unmatched in every way. Then comes the Gorilla and they steal the show effortlessly!
All the more so because genetically humans are very closely related to Gorilla. We saw our guide even communicate with one!
I saw a Gorilla long back at Chicago Zoo. Those are the lowland Gorillas off West Africa. They can be raised in captivity. The Chicago zoo troop was almost 20 G strong.
The best part of traveling in Uganda is the country offers pure untouched scope of natural exploration. While crossing the vast plains of Queen Elizabeth Park, we saw the Rwenzori mountain range, standing between Uganda and Congo.
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