On Sunday Dec. 7th I got driven by Ibra, the same driver who had driven me to Mbarara from Kampala and would be with me the rest of the trip. Normally I would have taken public transportation but Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (where 340 of the 700 Mountain Gorillas remaining in the world reside) is off the beaten track and hard to get to by public means and given the investment I had already placed in seeing the Gorillas, I decided the extra cost of having a driver was worth it. After 2 hours on paved roads and 3 hours on crappy dirt roads, we finally reach Bwindi. Absolutely beautiful. It had a lush green valley floor with scattered trees and a river winding through it. This quickly transformed into a dense forest with the dirt road continuing through a very touristy town in that both sides of the road were lined with little shops selling Gorilla carvings, t-shirts, and pictures.
The next morning I woke up early to register and attend a briefing on how the day would go. We then hopped back into a car and drove to the other side of town where the road got too step for the car so we got out and started our tracking. We walked straight up hill for the next 45 minutes and it was mainly on road and country side. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to be using the machete and making our own trail. Finally we arrived at the forest's edge and got word that the trackers who had left an hour or 2 before us had found the Gorillas and we were about an hour hike from them. I was hoping for a slightly longer hike through the forest, but at least it meant we would see the Gorillas, which is not guaranteed.
The way they track the Gorillas is that they take note of their position the day before using GPS. The trackers then leave early in the morning and return to where they were the previous day and follow their path from there. Some days the Gorillas move far, others they stay nearby. They may move closer to the edge of the forest or deeper in. There is really no way of knowing until you start looking for them.
Anyway, we hiked through the forest, mainly on a path, although there were definitely some sketchy areas. We then met up with the trackers who had found the Gorillas. We left our bags with one of the guides and proceeded to machete and crawl our way through the forest for about 10-15 minutes. Jim, a guy I met at the hostel the night before who is traveling with his sister and her friend and who happened to be in my group, and I took the lead with the guide as we were very anxious to see these Gorillas. All of a sudden they were right in front of us. We were within 8 feet of one of the females who was sitting on the ground munching on some bushes. We slowly made our way past her and there was an opening in the trees and sitting up in the branches about 20 ft up, right above us was the immensely large and intimidating male Silverback Gorilla. As males mature, they develop a very distinct patch of silver hair that wraps around the middle of the back. This tends to happen when they are around 15 years old (L.E. is 50 years or so). This male dictates what the group does from where they eat, sleep, and when and where they move to. Any arguments among the group, the dominant male Silverback ultimately has the last say. There can be more than one Silverback in a group, but the eldest is the leader. The group we were observing only had one Silverback, but also had another young male around 10 years old who will soon begin to develop the silverback distinction. There were a total of 9 Gorillas in the group, including a very new born baby who was being carried around by his mother.
Anyway, while I was being mesmerized by the large Silverback, the other Gorilla Jim and I had just passed decided to feign a charge at Jim will beating its chest. Whoa... The Gorilla then backed off and scooted up into the tree to continue eating. We spent about an hour watching and observing the Gorillas as they ate, climbed, descended, played, and produced some very impressive flatulence (which, despite my level of maturity...i found utterly amusing as did most of the group).
Just as our hour was wrapping up, the Gorillas started to climb down their trees. The Silverback stayed put for a minute and we followed the others to get a closer view on the ground. Getting up close like that was great, then I noticed that the Silverback was starting to come down from his tree. I immediately realized we were now in between the Silverback and the rest of the group. I stood there watching him, thinking about how mad he might be. He continued to walk right up to us. We were slightly obscured from his view behind a fallen tree. He turned the corner around the tree, no more than 8 feet from me and only about 4 feet from Jim's sister, Bailey. Upon seeing us in his path he let out a terrifying growl-like yell right at us. I wish I could say I wasn't terrified, but the video I was taking at the time reveals everything as the video zooms in on the ground... The guide in the front was very calm and we quickly realized that the Silverback wasn't actually going to charge at us, but was just pissed he needed to find another way around us. He proceeded to saunter right past us, so close it felt like we could have touched him. It was really an amazing experience, especially when you realize there are only 700 of these Mountain Gorillas left in the world and the only place they are located is South-Western Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC.
In conclusion, it was 100% worth the expense and I will never forget that experience. Truly amazing.
Later that afternoon, I departed from Bwindi to head up north back into Queen Elizabeth National Park. This time I would be staying in Ishasha to make an effort at seeing tree-climbing lions. There are very few areas where this occurs, but the lions, after having a morning meal will climb up into the large Acacia trees and just lounge in the shade and breeze. No one could really tell me why these lions climb the trees while just 70 km further north, they don't. Anyway, I stayed in a sketchy hostel in the middle of the park that night and fell asleep to the sound of hippos munching on some grass outside of my room. I woke early in the morning to go on a game drive. We quickly spotted a large herd of Ugandan Kobs standing at attention, all facing the same direction. We made our way over there and sure enough, there were 2 enormous female lions who happened to be enjoying a fine meal which consisted of one of the unfortunate Ugandan Kobs. The driver took me right up to the lions. I was within 5 feet of the lions (but still in the car) and got a great view of the chunk of meat one of them was enjoying so thoroughly. Unfortunately the lions didn't make it up into the trees while I was there, but it was still awesome to see the lions up so close and enjoying just a fresh meal.
After a brief breakfast back at the hostel, I departed for Kyambura Gorge, further up north about 70 km north (2 hour drive because of the road) where I would attempt to go Chimpanzee tracking at a much more affordable $30. I had called ahead and they said they had just gotten back from the morning track and had found the chimps and left them close by while they slept. The odds were good that I would get to see them. We left and walked down for about 15 minutes to where the chimps had been left, but they weren't there and we had noticed some elephant tracks on the way down that looked relatively new. The guide had carried a rifle down with us, just incase we came across any lions (didn't, but did find their dung), buffalo, or elephants. Sure enough, after walking around for another 20 minutes, we came across an elephant. The guide cocked the gun and the elephant turned right at us. I found myself thinking that there was no way the gun the guide had would actually take down the elephant. Fortunately I didn't have to find out. The elephant turned and walked away. However, this was not a good sign for us to see the chimps as apparently the elephants will harass the chimps just to show their dominance. Sure enough, we walked for 2 hours and saw nothing. Quite disappointing, but they are wild animals.
That evening I drove up to Fort Portal, another 2 hours north and then headed another 30 minutes our of Fort Portal to a crater lake, Nyabikere meaning Lake of Frogs. My god, the sound was deafening. I even ate my dinner with ear plugs in, and I never use ear plugs. You really couldn't hear yourself think. Fortunately once you were in your room you couldn't really hear them too loudly so I was able to sleep just fine.
The next morning I was taken on a hike to "Top of the World" which was about a 3 hour round trip hike up to the top of a nearby hill that was situated right in between 3 crater lakes and had a view of a fourth. I was led up there by a 70 year old local man who kicked my butt up that climb. We then sat up on the top for a while and took in the beautiful view and talked politics, both US and Ugandan. It is always interesting to hear what people here think of both Bush and Obama as well as to hear about the local politics pertaining to Museveni. Museveni has been in power for about 25 years now and has become very corrupt. There was a limit to two terms as President, but as that time approached, he bribed officers and changed the rule. Now it appears he is going to remain in power until he dies. The margins of his electoral victories have declined from 96% when he was first elected to a very questionable 51% in 2007. He threw his most recent competitor into jail 2 days before the elections and had now charged him with treason. It is not looking good for 2011... There is a lot of concern.
Anyway, the crater lake region was also extremely beautiful and if the weather is nice you can see the Rwenzori mountains. Unfortunately I only got a very brief glimpse of them as I drove by. The rest of the time they were blocked by a cloudy haze.
Instead of spending another night up in Fort Portal, I decided I would drive back towards Kyambura Gorge and give the chimp tracking another shot in the morning. Found a cheap hostel in a local town and spent the night dominating the pool table which had a mean slant to it. Pool is very popular here and bars typically only have one outdoor pool table that gets a lot of action every night. The locals were very impressed with my game, little did they know I was getting absurdly lucky all night long. But it was a lot of fun.
The next morning I got up to do the morning chimp track. We found them up near the community, but they were on the move and very shy. I got about a 30 second glimpse of them from across the gorge which was about 100 meters at that spot. We drove around to the other side to try to follow them. It was looking good when all of a sudden there were some bees flying around the guides head. Figuring they would just fly off I took little notice. Next thing I new one fly right into my forehead and soon enough they were around my head and would not leave. The guide told me to cover my head with my long sleeve shirt and I abided. They swarmed and swarmed. Got stung on my hand holding my shirt and then right in the middle of the back through my t-shirt. The guide then grabbed my arm and started leading me blindly away from the area as I couldn't see much through my shirt. We were not on any path and the grass and bushes were about 3 ft high and really wet. As he guided me away, a bee managed to get into the shirt over my head so i threw that one the ground and then started high-tailing it through the long grass zigging this way and that. I am sure it was quite a sight but these freaking bees were extremely persistent. After running around for a couple minutes I settled down, thinking I was in the clear. Catching my breath for a minute turned out to be a bad idea as one landed on my pants. I squashed that bugger with much satisfaction. However, that satisfaction was short-lived as soon they were swarming my head again. The guides were now also high-tailing through the grass and I followed suit. Soon enough we were a ways away and took it easy. Soaking wet up to my waist from the tall grass, we made our way into the nearby banana plantation and walked back to the car. I discovered another bee-sting and proceeded to pull the centimeter long stingers out of my hand, arm, and back. The guide had gotten stung right on his eye-lid. Needless to say we did not see the chimps there and were glad to be back in the car.
We then returned to the main gorge area and decided to go try to find the other group of chimps. We hiked for another 2 hours, mostly in the rain. Scooting and crawling across the rushing river on soaking wet trees. Unfortunately we didn't find anything else. Despite only getting a glimpse of the chimps early in the morning, it was definitely a memorable experience that I will not forget. After all, I was attacked by African Killer Bees (well, maybe not Killer, but it sounds better).
While it was only a 4 day trip, it was extremely eventful and enjoyable. I then returned to Mbarara for my last weekend in town. I am heading off tomorrow to head up to Bujagali and Jinja to go white water rafting on the Nile River with Brian, Connor, and Annie. I will then spend a day in Kampala before I fly out on Friday, assuming I survive the half dozen class 5 rapids I will be going down on Wednesday. I head off to Vienna, Austria to meet up with dear friend and college roommate Chris "Toast" Hoffman. We will be in Vienna for 2 nights, Salzburg for a night, Munich for a night, and then back to Salzburg for 2 nights. Hopefully we will be able to work in a day of skiing. I will make one more Uganda post either in Austria or when I get home to wrap things up. I won't know if I am coming back to Uganda until after I get home from my trip. I feel I have had an amazing experience here, definitely one I will never forget and hopefully one I will build on going forward. I am going to make sure to enjoy the last bit of time I have here. If I come back, I will pick off right where I left off.
As my next post my not be until after Christmas, I want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday (Christmas, Chanukah and the like). I hope to see as many of you as possible while I am home around New Years. Take care!
1 comment:
The stories just get better and better. Great stuff - bad bees! Love ya, Dad
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