If you’ve watched the movie “Gorillas in the Mist” released in 1988, most likely you’ll feel the urge to see and save the gorillas. The movie is based on the autobiography of Dr. Dian Fossey who dedicated her life on protecting the gorillas from poachers. Unfortunately, she was brutally murdered in 1978 but there is no doubt she played a vital role in saving mountain gorillas from extinction. Today we could not perhaps witness this magnificent ape if the conservation work was not initiated by her. The legacy continued and now mountain gorillas can be found in Rwanda and Uganda. We chose to visit Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda on our way to Masaimara in Kenya. The plan must be booked almost a year ahead as there is a daily limit on number of persons admitted into the forest. The flight to Entebbe from Nairobi was about an hour and we arrived Entebbe around 2am. Our 8-seater flight to Kihihi from Entebbe was at 7am which was operated by Aerolink Uganda. Kihihi is the nearest airport from Bwindi, the flight took us over the Lake Victoria and then over the mountains in Uganda, we reached Kihihi in about 90 minutes.
Here is a check list for Gorilla Tracking in Uganda for those who are interested: Read more
William from our Mahogany lodge was waiting for us with the van, we arrived the lodge at 10am. On our way we saw Grey Crested Crane, the national bird of Uganda.
After lunch went for a walk to see Pygmy community, women center and an old man in the village who makes coffee from his own garden. He also makes beer and gin from banana. I purchased a pack of coffee beans from the old man.
Next day we left the lodge at 7:30am for Bwindi impenetrable forest. We arrived at the forest gate where our body temperature was recorded, permits were inspected and then we took seat in a big open area. It started with dance and welcome message from the locals. Then tracking groups were formed, eight people per group. We were assigned to a group Habinyanza which consists of 13 gorillas. We will be going to Buhoma tracking location to see that family of Gorillas at Bwindi impenetrable forest. There are six gorilla families living at Buhoma entrance of Bwindi in 2024; Muyambi, Mubare, Katwe, Rushegura, Binyiindo and Habinyanja. Each family could have 8 to 15 members, sometimes when the group gets larger the weaker silverback leaves the group with a female to have their own family in a different part of the forest.
Buhoma is about 40 minutes’ drive to reach the point which is a small village named Kayonza, where we started hiking. After about 1.5 miles of hiking through the rainforest and steep trails we had the first glimpse of gorillas. We waited for a while as the trackers sent message that the group was coming towards our direction.
Soon we were encircled by a large group of gorillas, about 13 to 15 in number, with their little kids. The silverback kept a watch on everyone. At the same time, he was guiding the group through the dense vegetation. I had taken lot of pictures, videos with the gorillas. They were not at all aggressive, rather curious and didn’t pay attention to us. One silverback even pushed one of our tourists from Spain on his way to the forest. We spent about an hour with the Gorillas, observed their family bonding, unity, affection and love. Our guide mentioned humans have 98.4% similarities with gorillas in DNA. Their eyes are absolutely beautiful, full of emotion and expressions, there is no aggression on their faces, peacefully eating their favorite plants. Mountain gorillas are found only in this forest of Rwanda and Uganda, another type of Gorilla is found in Congo which is at plainland and their size is little smaller than Mountain Gorillas. It was 11am and is the time to return, we are not allowed to stay more than an hour in close proximity with the gorillas. The ranger said that gorillas get agitated for longer duration with humans. On our return we met village kids who were expecting some food from us. We distributed our packed lunch to them, took some photographs of their village and walked down to the market place where we had our vans waiting.
We left the lodge next day early morning for our flight to Ol Seki in Masaimara via Entebbe.
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