Bwindi - Gorilla Trekking

  Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
Friday, August 22, 2008

After spending the night at Lake Bunonyi we headed for Bwindi Impenetrable Forest - The home of the rare mountain Gorilla. This was what we had all been waiting for - to see Silverback and blackback Gorillas.

Beautiful view over some tea fields

Bwindi is a very special place. It is right next to the DR Congo border and very far away from any larger cities. Our camp site was in the little village of Bohoma on the edge of the forest. As everywhere in Uganda all the people was very friendly and smiling, but they were also very poor. All the women and children were working hard in the fields - mostly tea and bananas. It seemed to be the women doing the most of the work.

Gorilla in the Jungle

Saturday was the Gorilla tracking day and we were all very excited to finally get to see Gorillas. There are 3 habituated Gorilla groups in Bwindi. This means they are used to having humans close to them in the forest. There are other groups, which are not habituated of course - around 350 gorillas in total in Bwindi. The trackers go out early in the morning to find the spot where the gorillas was last seen the day before and starts tracking them from there. Our guides were using the machetes to clear a path for us through the Jungle and it took us about 2 hours trekking in the Jungle to find our group of Gorillas. Our group had 27 gorillas in it and according to our guide we saw around 17 of them including the 2 silverback males leading the group. Seeing the gorillas was an incredibly experience - something completely out this world.

Large silverback Gorilla - leader of the pack

The biggest silverback male spent most of his time sitting or lying down eating and farting. From time to time he got up and crawled a little bit up in a tree to get some more food for then to go back down to continue eating. We were allowed to be approximately 7 meters from the gorillas, but the gorillas apparently don't know these rules, as Christian had a silverback walking around him about 1-2 meters away. This was incredibly cool, but also very scary. Cecilie had a small gorilla approaching her and the guide had to use a small branch to make it stop .

Little cute gorilla 1 meters from Cecilie

We were allowed 1 hour with the gorillas. UWA - Uganda wildlife Authority are very strict on the conservation of the gorillas - so we got 1 hour - no more and no less. We took hundreds of pictures and some video. This we will remember for the rest of our lives!

A girl dancing from Bwindi Orphanage

We did a lot more in Bwindi than seeing Gorillas as we were there for 3 days. We went to the Orphanage to see the children perform many different dances. They were really good and they were very good at playing drums as well. We had stopped on the way to Bwindi at a stationary shop to buy pens, pencils, exercise books, and math sets. This we donated to the orphanage school as of course the children don't have any parents to buy them these things. We also bought drawings and crafts, which the children had made.

Our group in the womens craft shop

The poverty in these remote places is overwhelming. It is simply not possible to imagine how poor some of these people are until you see it for yourself. Most of them have nothing - no electricity, no water, just a mud-hut, and still they survive. This is mostly thanks to the women.

We went to the Bwindi Community Hospital (Hospital is a big word), which was nothing but 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 equipment. But it is amazing what they have done and what they do now. They now have several African nurses and 1 African doctor and 1 lab technician.

They also accept volunteers to help them for as long as needed. They are having two danish medical students volunteering for 3 months beginning September. Right now they really need a logistics person as the clinic/hospital is growing. However one of the biggest problems they have right now is how to pay the staff and the day to day running costs. If you think you can help them in any way, please look at: www.BCHC.ug

Two girls in a classroom doing homework

On the second day in Bwindi we went on the "3 Waterfall Walk". It was a nice walk in the jungle to see 3 waterfalls, and it only took 2-3 hours. The last day we went on a community walk through the valley. We saw how they make banana beer and gin (neither very tasty) and how tea is produced. We also stopped by the local medicine man, who told us about various remedies to cure infertility and headaches. It was really hard to understand how anyone would ever try the things he suggested, but this is of course they way it has been for centuries. We finished by visiting another school and the local Pygmy tribe.

The Impenetrable Forest

Bwindi is a magical place. Seeing the gorillas was the most fantastic experience ever, and meeting the local people and children was truly inspirationally. We left Bwindi with heavy hearts.