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.
Why did I choose Uganda for Mountain Gorilla trekking
In Uganda you can find the Mountain Gorillas in their natural habitat at Bwindi Impenetrable forest.
It is the forest that shares borders with Volcanic national park as well as Virunga mountains, both natural habitats of the mountain gorillas.
In my research, Uganda appeared multiple times for the most viable Gorilla trekking option.
Firstly, there is more to see in Uganda beyond the gorillas. The chimpanzee trekking at Kibale National park, night safari of Murchisons fall NP, and the elusive shoebill bird of Victorian swamp featured on my bucket list.
Secondly, Uganda charges USD 800 per person for the gorilla permit. Congo charges USD 350, the lowest in the region however Congo is a wartorn country. My research did not yield a positive outlook for Congo.
Thirdly, Rwanda among the 3 viable countries in the region of Mountain gorilla trekking had the steepest price point, at USD 1600, however it almost guarantees a seamless experience with the least amount of safety threat.
I would have chosen Rwanda, but I had time in hand and Uganda seemed to be more fun when it came to experiencing more wildlife!
In short, I chose Uganda for Gorilla trekking because it has more activities and the price was half of that of Rwanda. Of course, the recent safe streak of politics in Uganda makes a traveler feel at ease to take a decision to visit Uganda.
How to prepare for the Gorilla trekking in Uganda (from an obese person)
As an obese person (currently I weigh 44 lbs more than what I should Ideally be).
It took me a while to prepare for the gorilla trek.
I walked everyday for at least half an hour, practiced squats and a bit of weight lifting, not to lose weight but to get stronger to be able to walk on the mountain terrain.
It is an impenetrable forest, a dense rainforest. You need to cut open your own path if the usual route is occupied (read, a forest elephant might be standing in the trail).
Being strong is not an option while going for the Mountain gorilla trekking. However you may always request for an easier route, a less walkable route and visit them, the marvellous mountain gorillas.
It is likely your wish would be granted.
How does the Gorilla trekking experience take place
You wake up early, often with a call from the resort.
You eat your breakfast, and pack a lunch for the road and get into the vehicle to visit the park premises.
At the gate of the park, you meet the rangers, the guides, often armed. They brief you.
The group gets divided into small groups of 7 to 8 people and further head to their designated “families”.
Each Gorilla troop is headed by a silverback, may have a few female gorillas and blackback, meaning juvenile males and of course few babies.
You can ask them to put you in specific groups, if you have specific requests (say you wanna see a baby gorilla).The day we went for the hike, there were few groups who started from the premises immediately. However we drove further for 40 minutes to start our trek.
Along the red soul, rolling hills of tea and plantain plantation, we went in hoping to see the last few hundred of the majestic beast that the Mountain Gorilla are!
We were lucky. We did not have to walk for more than 25 minutes to meet our family. Most of the walk on a plateau, until the mountain took a steep descent, filled with green tickets under the canopy of the ancient rainforest.
This is where the porters were helpful. They are dwellers of the nearby villages, who get porter work on a rotation basis, twice every month for a meagre 20 bucks. Women and men alike.
They would carry your water, camera, sticks and everything!
On our way back, it started pouring heavily. I do not know how I returned. My porter took me back to the main road. I have a blurry memory of a green haze of a misty rainforest and stepping on something which felt dangerously slippery and tender, yet I made it back and now I am writing this blog, so all cool I guess!
I tipped them gently, the ranger, porters, and guides- everyone.
The rangers are there with these habituated gorilla families. Either they follow them at dawn, or they follow them at night. Gorillas do not migrate in speed.
The rangers and trackers know where they are when we start the hike in the morning. They communicate with the guide and ranger of your group. That is how you get closer to each Gorilla family.
We were assigned with the group Habinyanja. During our time, the group had 8 Gorillas, of which we saw 4. A silverback ,a female with her 4 month old male baby and a black back. We spent exactly an hour as we went close to the gorillas.
The habituated gorilla groups see humans on a daily basis. They know the ranger, so much so that I could see them communicate with each other.
Gorillas rest and eat, eat for the larger part of the day. They need tons of vegetables. There are certain shrubs and bushes that they enjoy more.
We stood in awe in front of the infant and the mother who kept cuddling with each other. They took turns to give us a few curious glances. We could spot their nest on the ground made of thick foliage.
The silverback was sitting at a few meters distance, sleeping, until our rangers went and woke him up.
It almost felt like both of them had an understanding through the grunts and sounds they used. Gorillas have 14 different vocalizations.
He reluctantly sat up as the ranger neared him, munched on roots hanging from the tree, looked up for his woman and kid, made some grunts to which his wife gorilla replied with assurance, and he went to sleep again.
Within that time frame two juvenile blackbacks roamed around us. The silverback sat up straight as it started to rain, making an annoyed pose with his two limbs covering the body. That was such a touching moment.
We left shortly afterwards.
As it started to rain and we were in the thick of the rainforest I mistakenly took a picture on my phone in a flash when the great ape looked at me in shock. I felt extremely guilty.
But he is a gentle giant so he let it go. There was no chest thumping, no showing of canines.
If I could redo the whole experience, I would choose to go for the 4 hour habituation experience.
Is it safe to visit the gorilla at Bwindi National park
So far there has been no incident of gorillas being aggressive or attacking humans, which is not something we can write about the chimps!
It was in 1980 that the number of mountain gorillas came down to 400. It is a sheer success of every scientist, government and tourism partners and mostly of the local community that the numbers have risen a little over 1000 in the region as of today.
While tourism is not a very sustainable solution for gorilla conservation, it sure is part of the whole conservation effort.
It reduces the risk of poaching and benefits the local economy to a large extent. However, the mountains are often the last bastion for rebel militias in the region where political unrest is pretty common. In case of a threat to the militias, local rangers as well as gorillas are vulnerable to the risk.
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