Our alarm went off at 5:02am. We did our usual morning routine of bug spray, malaria pills, and breakfast before hopping into our safari jeep and launching into the still very dark morning. The road accessing the Mutanda Lake Resort is bonkers. If you’ve ever ridden the Indiana Jones Adventure ride at Disneyland and think, “This is unnecessarily bouncy. No road would be like this.” Well, think again! We even paused for a moment at the base of a hill before gunning it in order to have the momentum as if we were next in line at a ride. “No Indy! You looked into the eye!“ After about 90 minutes of careening down pulsating, spine shattering, sphincter clenching roads, we arrived at Mgahinga National Park.
There are two major parks you can view gorillas in Uganda — Mgahinga and Bwindi. The latter is far more popular with tourists as there are around 20 families of gorillas located there. I suppose the reasoning is that one’s odds are better to find the gorilla groups. However, each tracking team can have a max of 8 people and are supposed to track a specific family of gorillas in either case. We chose Mgahinga, where there is only one family, but the environment is a bit more open. While the hiking at Mgahinga is often strenuous as it is up a mountain, it is not through an impenetrable forest like Bwindi that is literally called the “Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.” Guides with machetes must hack their way through the brush in Bwindi for their clients who may catch a glimpse of the gorillas between the dense foliage. At Mgahinga, it was just the two of us and a couple Canadians. Two men with AK47s covered the front and rear of our column, while a few trackers communicated via cellphone with our guide to advise on which direction to move.
Though the brush was not extremely dense, this hike was no picnic. At its base, we were over 7800 ft elevation, and we only went up from there. At first we were concerned about the speed at which the guide and Canadians tore off ahead of us. The pace we were maintaining was shocking like we were in Olympic speedwalking. Fortunately it settled down a bit as we entered thicker brush, low-hanging vines, and dense bamboo forest. After about 30 minutes, we were asked to tuck our pants bottoms into our socks to prevent red ants from biting us. After 45 mins, we were asked to put on gloves to prevent poisonous vegetation from striking our skin. After nearly an hour and a half, we were asked to don face coverings to protect the gorillas as we closed in. Their genetic code is so similar to ours that we could give them all sorts of diseases. On that note, were the gorillas confused when everyone stopped coming during the COVID-19 pandemic? And were they hostile to the first group that came back? After all, they are wild animals, despite being “habituated” to humans.
Almost all of a sudden, through the bamboo forest they appeared. There are nine members of the Nyakagezi family of mountain silverback gorillas. They are unique in that they all live together happily. Usually in gorilla culture, the older male gets banished to live a solitary life after aging out of importance. Bugingo, the eldest male in his 50s, still is allowed to hang out with the rest of the crew. The new alpha, named Mark for some reason, seems to be fairly chill about it all. With that being said, we had some pretty close encounters with Mark and many of the other gorillas. At one point, he traipsed right by Nicole, and at another instance I found myself in the path of one lurching forward. The guides initially told us to stand still and not to move when they moved toward us, but I had to sidestep quickly so as to not be run over by all 500 lbs of fun charging at me. It was at times unnerving to have such large creatures so close to our presence, feeling us out.
We were allowed to linger for an hour, but it went fast. We also had to keep moving to follow their movements. They are a famously very mobile group of gorillas. We watched the youths, named Mafia and Ndungutse play around and grapple with each other with one jumping off a tree to tackle the other like a WWE move. At one point, one of them caressed the pants of one of the Canadians. Though mobile, these gorillas have mostly settled into Mgahinga, having previously crossed back-and-forth into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Being well-versed in the political and social unrest in that country, the gorillas have no more time for the DRC’s nonsense and appear to have rescinded their passports long ago.
The march back down the mountain was tedious on our knees, but we eventually emerged back to the starting point before noon. We were given certificates of our achievements, applauded for our physical fitness and teamwork, and enjoyed a ninety minute drive back to our resort. The experience was incredible. I was frantically changing lenses because they kept moving so close to me. A zoom lens was almost worthless.
We had wanted to rent a kayak and paddle around the lake a bit upon our return, but the wind had really picked up, and we needed to rest our bodies from all the intense hiking. We retreated instead to the restaurant area of the property — the only spot that has WiFi and contemplated our options for tomorrow when we plan to leave the country and start working our way back to the United States.
passports & pepto bismol 