The Impenetrable Forest
We had been walking for 3 hours when I asked Maddy, our guide,
- Did the trackers find the gorillas yet?
- Not yet, no luck. It is going to be a long day.
It was a long day, 7 hours tracking gorillas in the rainforest. Maddy warned us beforehand,
- This is not a safari. For safari you go to Queen Elizabeth [the game park] and seat in a car to point animals. Here you have to walk and find them, look for signs, track their path. Sometimes it takes half an hour, sometimes 3 hours, and sometimes you can’t find them.
My only concern was the last part of the statement, we had to find those gorillas. So I just obeyed Maddy’s rather rational advice: ‘the trackers follow the gorillas, and we follow the trackers.’
Every day 3 teams leave Buhoma to track gorillas, one team per family. Only 8 visitors are allowed in each team to which you add a guide, one ranger, and 2-3 trackers who walk 1h ahead of the main group to track the gorillas and try to maximize the probably of success. In addition, you can hire porters. Porters are clearly useless in a day trekking but that is a way of helping the local community and that way ensure the sustainability of the park.
We left Buhoma at 8am at Maddy’s voicing ‘let’s penetrate the impenetrable forest!’ And so we did. Looking from our starting point all I could see was a green mass drawn by opulent tree crowns fighting for light on an overcrowded ground. That was the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the place that 340 gorillas call home. We were about to track 9 of them, one of the 3 families allowed to receive visitors: one silverback male, two females, 4 teenagers, and 2 babies.
Just like we were told, the rainforest is not an easy place to walk through. Multitude of vegetation fights for light, water and ground, forming a living mesh that seems to grab our feet as we walk. The higher vegetation does not allow us to see more than 4-5 meters ahead but we have Maddy, our guide, who moves through the impenetrable forest as if it is his home.
I am behind Maddy when he shouts ‘They found them!’, meaning the trackers had found the gorillas. More than euphoria I sensed relief among the group. Right until then, Maddy’s face did not inspire optimism and everyone was feeling we could be one of the 10% that are not able to see the gorillas. We walk as fast as we can until we find the trackers. They are lying in the ground, drinking porridge, and waiting for us, ‘they are 2-3 minutes away.’ Maddy drives us a few more meters and all of the sudden he stops, ‘the first one is here, try to be silent from now on and turn off the flashes.’ The moment that everyone expected arrived.
The first one we see is Wagaba, a male teenager. He’s seating in the middle of a bush avidly eating pieces of tender bush. We surround him but he’s immutable, like if we were not there. After a while he starts moving and we follow him. He takes us to his family and that is the entire show. The father Ruhondeza, a large silverback, is eating an entire bush. At his right, one of the babies is hanging from a tree eating berries. After a while, Marayika, another teenager, comes and starts playing next to the father. Ruhondeza just wants to sleep. Kashongo, one of the females, joins the crowd and, wow!, she brings one of the babies attached to her chest. We are literally among them. We are so among them that Kanyone, a girl teenager, grabs Sarah’s arm when she is trying to get a close-up, but in a such gentle way that she seems she’s trying to take a look at the picture.
My only concern was the last part of the statement, we had to find those gorillas. So I just obeyed Maddy’s rather rational advice: ‘the trackers follow the gorillas, and we follow the trackers.’
Every day 3 teams leave Buhoma to track gorillas, one team per family. Only 8 visitors are allowed in each team to which you add a guide, one ranger, and 2-3 trackers who walk 1h ahead of the main group to track the gorillas and try to maximize the probably of success. In addition, you can hire porters. Porters are clearly useless in a day trekking but that is a way of helping the local community and that way ensure the sustainability of the park.
We left Buhoma at 8am at Maddy’s voicing ‘let’s penetrate the impenetrable forest!’ And so we did. Looking from our starting point all I could see was a green mass drawn by opulent tree crowns fighting for light on an overcrowded ground. That was the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the place that 340 gorillas call home. We were about to track 9 of them, one of the 3 families allowed to receive visitors: one silverback male, two females, 4 teenagers, and 2 babies.
Just like we were told, the rainforest is not an easy place to walk through. Multitude of vegetation fights for light, water and ground, forming a living mesh that seems to grab our feet as we walk. The higher vegetation does not allow us to see more than 4-5 meters ahead but we have Maddy, our guide, who moves through the impenetrable forest as if it is his home.
I am behind Maddy when he shouts ‘They found them!’, meaning the trackers had found the gorillas. More than euphoria I sensed relief among the group. Right until then, Maddy’s face did not inspire optimism and everyone was feeling we could be one of the 10% that are not able to see the gorillas. We walk as fast as we can until we find the trackers. They are lying in the ground, drinking porridge, and waiting for us, ‘they are 2-3 minutes away.’ Maddy drives us a few more meters and all of the sudden he stops, ‘the first one is here, try to be silent from now on and turn off the flashes.’ The moment that everyone expected arrived.
The first one we see is Wagaba, a male teenager. He’s seating in the middle of a bush avidly eating pieces of tender bush. We surround him but he’s immutable, like if we were not there. After a while he starts moving and we follow him. He takes us to his family and that is the entire show. The father Ruhondeza, a large silverback, is eating an entire bush. At his right, one of the babies is hanging from a tree eating berries. After a while, Marayika, another teenager, comes and starts playing next to the father. Ruhondeza just wants to sleep. Kashongo, one of the females, joins the crowd and, wow!, she brings one of the babies attached to her chest. We are literally among them. We are so among them that Kanyone, a girl teenager, grabs Sarah’s arm when she is trying to get a close-up, but in a such gentle way that she seems she’s trying to take a look at the picture.
The shy Kanyone playing with a stick
The little one eating berries
Ruhondeza, the silverback
Kanyone grabbing Sarah's arm
I cannot believe I can be so close to them, being touched by these gentle giants, watching them playing, eating or sleeping, just like any other family on a weekend. The little one comes to the middle and wants to play but none of his siblings seem very excited with the idea.
The family reunion
Maddy starts counting ’15 more minutes’. We can only be with them for 1h in order to minimize the chance of passing any diseases to the gorillas. When we have to go I take another look at that family, they look so much like us.
The way back to the camp is made in silent; everyone is digesting emotions, strong emotions from an unbelievable experience.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment