Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

... showering having cleared up, and just talked about how happy we were to be here. Echalotte got himself some hot coal spa action while I fell asleep on the couch reading my book, only to be awoken to enthusiastic &#8220;Best of American Gospel&#8221; on the TV and have written up these logs.<br><br>Et voila, hot chocolate beside me, tomorrow&#8217;s our last day up here, visiting the twin crater lakes and the market before driving back to Kigali to the Laico hotel. Big smiles :D

... The government doesn&#8217;t want them to do it obviously because they can make money off the animals through tourism. There kind of like the Indians in America because the government gave them a very small piece of land to use and have basically been forgotten about. The tour leader knew a guy who spoke the language and he took us to the village to see them. We arrived and immediately the whole village came and greeted us. We were sat down on some ...

... restaurants sont bons et pas chers et savent faire ce que les touristes aiment. Bref l ouganda est plus relaxant.<br> Je vais vers la capitale Kampala en utilisant le bus postal, c est a dire le bus qui transportent le courrier et qui permet ainsi d eviter d arriver dans la gare centrale chaotique et toujours remplie de pickpocket comme il est de rigueur dans ce style de lieu.

... mothers with 6 month old&#8217;s.<br><br>Our trek wasn&#8217;t hard, with adrenaline pumping we breezed up the mountain at a fair clip. After only 40 minutes going straight up we had arrived where the family had been tracked to. We were then treated to a special show, with us right in the middle. They say that 7 metres is the distance you will be from the family, but we had a Silverback brush right past us. We were that close. It&#8217;s hard to put into words ...

... behaviour for this particular quirky gorilla, Heindrick quickly retreated a little shaken to the back of the group and stayed quiet for the rest of the trek. We saw loads of gorillas including the head of the group 'the silverback' and lots of social interaction between the group including feeding, grooming and playing from just a few metres away. I found the whole experience thrilling but quite a blur due to the heat and altitude and this was by far the hardest thing i ...

... humid day but we stopped en route at a tea plantation and a birds eye view over the Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw plenty of bird life and 2 elephants frolocking in the distance. We stopped for lunch at the park gates and had what can only be described as a very special experience with a longdrop (yuk)!!! <br><br>Following lunch we did a 45km open top game drive through the park, stopping to view lots ...

... We spent 45 minutes with them before we had to leave them. As we were walking back we had to walk by a female gorilla that only had one eye. We were told that she charges almost every time, the big problem with that is the silverback will charge also if he hears that. So we very carefully walked past the gorilla and she thankfully did not charge. We now had to do our 3.5 hour walk back to where we began. Again the ...

... of 14...of them we were saw 3 silver backs and were lucking enough o avoid one of them charging us. We spent about an our an a half following the family and sometimes were no more the2 metres away that it felt kind of surreal. In general they were pretty un-phased by us and just went about there business of eating leaves, ants, climbing, sleeping and even taking dumps in front of us. After we left we had another hour and a half of trekking, this was a ...

... on the grass and set up. The outhouse actually had tp and a toilet seat so it was pretty nice all around! Have not felt so surrounded by jungle... or so far from civilization in a long time though. It was great. The next morning we get up and are joined by two other Canadians who will trek with us. They are a lovely couple, both on their way to the Congo (they are Doctors). They have an organization that they have started which I am hoping to post the link of ...

... a small clinic a few years ago, but due to two English volunteers (Vicky and Paul) it has grown impressively. They have been there for 2 years and Vicky told us about how they worked with the community. For example they deliver around 50 babies a month at this hospital, many of them with torches as the hospital does not have electricity. They have a children's ward without electricity where they have to monitor babies born to early without having any ...