Walking With Gorillas

Image: DEEPA KRISHNAN

A rustle of leaves broke the silence. A hairy black hand swung on a branch and a pair of sharp eyes peered at us through the thicket. “There it is!” someone whispered. As we squirmed and turned noisily, she cracked the branch, and disappeared. The hand was Malaika’s. She is a juvenile female mountain gorilla in Bwindi National Park in south-western Uganda. I had spent the last one-and-a-half hours scrambling over wet boulders and bramble, through dense forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of these endangered creatures. Now, I’m less than five feet away from one.

Malaika belongs to the Mubare Group — a family of five gorillas in Bwindi. They were the first to be habituated for human contact in 1991 and two years later the group saw their first visitors. In recent years, Bwindi has become the most popular place to track these animals, as it is relatively safer for travel than Rwanda or Democratic Republic of Congo. There are only about 700 mountain gorillas that remain in the wild today, and they live in the rain forests of Central and East Africa.

Suddenly, a loud sound ripped through the air. That was unmistakably a fart. Our guide David spoke excitedly, “The young male, Kanyonyi! He’s around; they fart when they’re relaxed.” Everybody laughed. “Shhh, don’t be too loud. It will startle them,” said David, whacking the bushes and clearing a path to follow the gorillas. There was no place to get a good foot-hold, but not wanting to lose our gorillas, we trundled along, sticking our hiking canes into the soil for a strong grip. They were elusive and threatened to move further away, but we carried on determinedly. We were eight hikers, and five rangers. And, as we stood on a precarious ledge, adjusting our cameras, we heard another rustle from behind us. “Stand still, and let him pass,” said David.

My heart pounded, and I was too scared to turn around. A ranger gave me a hand, and I climbed up to a higher level just in time to see the handsome silverback. He was two feet away from me, ambling along.

And then he stopped. He stretched out his hand and scratched the shoe of one of our fellow trekkers, who nearly lost his balance and dropped his camera. He then decided to move on, to look for a spot where he could savour his shoots and leaves, without being disturbed. Meet Ruhondeza — the one who loves to sleep. He sat down rubbing his belly, and his young son Muyambi joined him. Behind them, the first lady of the group, Kashundwe, climbed up on a tree, to get away from the crowd.
My eyes were pressed to the camera, but nothing was as perfect as the pictures in my head. I decided to put it away and enjoy the moment. We were to spend the next hour with our magnificent cousins.


Conservation through Tourism
At over 25,000 years, Bwindi’s impenetrable forest is among the oldest in the world, and is one of the most biologically diverse forests in Africa. Besides gorilla trekking, it is also a rewarding experience for bird-watchers. It has a variety of birds (Albertine Rift Valley endemics) that can be found nowhere else in East Africa. Oddly enough, tourism over the last decade has helped conserve the habitat of these mountain gorillas. Their population has been steadily increasing, and over the last six years, 20 babies were born.

Tourism and awareness has picked up so much pace that the Uganda Wildlife Authority started the friend-a-gorilla project in October 2009. For just $1, anybody can friend a gorilla on social networking Web sites like Facebook or Twitter and follow their lives.

The real gorilla tracking, however, is an expensive affair at $500 a head for the permit alone. Yet, it’s gaining steady popularity, and has become one of the top foreign exchange earners in Uganda. At Bwindi, the money earned is used to maintain or rebuild the park and save the gorillas.

Even so, it’s a huge risk exposing the gorillas to human contact. As they share 95 percent of their genes with human beings, they can easily contract colds, and other airborne infections. Unfortunately, they do not have the immunity to get over these diseases easily. “Tourists with obvious signs of a cold or cough cannot visit the gorillas,” warned David, our guide, before we all started out.

Noted zoologist Dian Fossey drew the world’s attention to these gentle primates as she strove for nearly two decades from the late 1960s to save these animals from extinction. She lived and worked in the Rwandan side of the Virunga Volcanoes, a mountain range running along the northern border of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. We have indeed come a long way since then.

The Nitty Gritty
Gorilla trekking requires a huge commitment of time, energy and effort. But few go back without a magical experience. Four gorilla groups are available daily for tourists in Bwindi. The Mubare Group (five gorillas), the Habinyanja group (18), the Rushegura group (10) and the Nkuringo group (19). Tracking these groups could take anywhere between two and eight hours. And after they are spotted, you can spend one hour with them. Special trackers locate the animals before the trek begins.

It is advisable to reach Bwindi a day in advance. On the day of the trek, all the groups meet for a briefing on safety rules. After a short drive to the foothills, the trek begins. A large portion of the area has been deforested to plant banana trees, and almost abruptly, thick vegetation indicates the beginning of the rain forest.

We were getting closer to the animals. “Gorillas can walk up to 15 km in search of food, and they are herbivorous,” said the ranger, David.

They move in groups, and the dominant male of the pack, who is a silverback, can weigh anywhere between 200-300 kg, and can be about 5 feet tall. Females and juveniles tend to be smaller. After the age of 14, the hair on the male’s back turns grey, explaining why they are called silverbacks. Gorillas rarely attack, but they do get agitated with noise and distracted by activity. So flash photography is strictly prohibited. But don’t let that stop you from preparing those fancy cameras and camcorders for an arduous trip. And be warned that even your best photographs won’t do justice to the experience of seeing a wild mountain gorilla face-to-face. They are heart-warmingly like ourselves.

GETTING THERE

• Visas can be obtained on arrival at Entebbe airport, for $50 a head
• Distance to Bwindi from Kampala: 550 km
• Time taken: 10 hours
• Roads are very bad, and four-wheel drive is highly recommended
• Public transportation is available up to a point (Butagota, 17 km from Buhoma in Bwindi National Park)

WHAT YOU NEED

• A tracking pass for $500, that can be bought from the Uganda Wildlife Authority
• Passes are limited, and booking in advance is strongly recommended
• A rain jacket
• Reliable hiking shoes that also double up for wet weather
• Yellow fever vaccination is a must for entry into Uganda
• Malaria is a huge threat; malaria medicines and lots of mosquito repellent

ACCOMMODATION

• A wide range, from very luxurious to budget options, is available at Buhoma, ranging from $50 to $200 a night. Meal options can be included in the package, but are optional
• US dollars are the most widely accepted currency
• Not child friendly