Author: Jack

Today we did our Gorilla Habituation. Boy were we not ready for that. We met our Ranger, porters, and trackers at dawn and took off hiking. One hour in we’re a little winded, it’s at 6000 feet, and then our tracking began. We dove off trail down an incredibly steep ravine, clinging to plants, roots, and our porters as we plunged down. The porters weren’t there so much to carry our stuff, rather to push and pull us up and down the mountains. Then finally at the bottom, we’re told we found their trail from two days ago, and the grueling hike continues. Three hours later of going up and down the ravine, covered in ant bites, mud, and plant bits, we’re told we’re there. No sign to any of us, seems like all the other jungle we scrambled through, then we see them. A family of Gorillas sitting in the shade eating leaves, the young playing in the branches. It was amazing. They were so calm if our presence, one of the little ones came crashing down by Matty, eyes so curious. We started with that part of the group for awhile, following them as they moved through the jungle grazing on plants. There ended it being 5 babies who would periodically get in giant wrestling matches. Then we encountered the silver back. Our Ranger and the beginning of the hike and periodically throughout kept saying “Don’t run”. Until that point there hadn’t seemed a reason for the advice. The silver back tore out of the brush with no warning, roaring and charging by. All of us, trackers, Rangers, and tourists flinched back, and then he was gone. We learned later that a day before he had grabbed and bitten someone. After awhile, he got more comfortable with us and walked through to go get one of the females, leading the family away. As we followed, he would occasionally roar but didn’t rush us again. Then we saw the alpha silverback. He was between 400 to 440 lbs and surprisingly shy. He neither roared or tried to keep the rest of the family away. He sat, relaxed, snacked, and in general ignored us. We got to see two of the babies one last time, playing on the bushes and our time was up. It was magical, hard to go. They are truly amazing creatures, we were in awe. Finally the long hike back out of the jungle without the goal of gorillas to sustain us. At the end of that slippery vertical trek, we had hiked 10 miles of dense jungle.

Today we woke up at 4:30 and caught a quick flight in a 12 seater to Kisoro. We then had an hour drive to our colorful Lodge, driving around lake Mutanda. Beautiful lake full of little islands and giant volcanos hidden behind the clouds. It’s about 6000 ft high here and cold like Montara! We’re about 15km from Rwanda and 5km from the DRC.

This afternoon we took a boat ride Lake Mutanda. Our guide told us the lake is 900m deep and in the distance we could see a chain of seven volcanos. In the lake there are many islands, one inhabited and farmed, the rest people free. We hiked up to the village on the inhabited island and saw the struggle to live there with a government not willing to help. We also visited the “Punishment Island” where Rwandan kings 150 years ago sent unwed mothers to their death. It was a truly harrowing spot. We visited a cave where the mothers were tied up and left to die. They had uncovered many skeletons which are still there.

Tomorrow we wake up at the same time and hike into the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to do a Gorilla Habituation. What that basically entails is we get to spend 4 hours in a small group, only 4 permits allowed a day in all Uganda, with a family of gorillas that is being acclimated to having humans come and visit them. Should be exciting!

Cute monkey video

https://zarrf.smugmug.com/Travel/Uganda/

Amazing to be back in Africa, we arrived in Entebbe Uganda. After helping our taxi driver find our hotel, thank you Google maps, we took a brief sleep and met our local trip director for a briefing. Then we walked the botanical gardens here. It was surprisingly large, full of fun plants and a shockingly amount of wildlife. We saw two species of monkeys, wild orchids, a monitor lizard, tropical fruits, and 20 – 30 species of birds. After the botanical garden, we went for a beer at the beach with our guide Michael and his lady friend Lydia, and then off for a Sundowner cruise on Lake Victoria. Not a lot to see but very relaxing, good drinks, good snacks, and we crossed the equator! We got to try the local gin made from plantains, which was pretty tasty. We came back to a rather fancy dinner at the hotel. Tomorrow morning we’re leaving early for our hotel near the Bwindi impenetrable Forest.

Our day started at 2:26am when the heavens opened and one hell of a rainstorm hit! Thunder reverberated through our room, lightning crashed, the chaos directly overhead, good fun all around! After that part of storm passed we went back to sleep and when we got up, went back to Galata Tower. Yesterday we hadn’t gone up it. The view was gorgeous! Also learned most of the info from the plaque out front was wrong (as well as Wikipedia) but no need for more history! After another rainstorm hit while we were on top of the tower, we had a quick breakfast up there, another walk around the top of the tower, then back to the hotel to check out. After check out we visited the Archeological museum and immersed ourselves in grave stones, sarcophagi, and ancient relics for awhile. After a few beers and a trip to the airport, we’re now off to Entebbe Uganda.