Coming face to face with a Mountain Gorilla in Uganda

On our recent Nature Travel Birding and Primate safari in August 2018 we spent some time trekking the Mountain Gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

The excitement of seeing these amazing creatures had built up through the tour and on the morning we gathered at Ruhija for a briefing and headed into the forest of Bwindi to find the Mukiza Gorilla Group. This was a bucket list animal sighting that our clients have wanted to see for many years.  Walking through this primary forest is in itself a breathtaking experience. The distant call of a Black-billed Turaco and the L’Hoest’s Monkeys looking at us as we trekked through the forest added to our excitement. About 35 minutes into our trekking our guide turns around and says to us that we are 3 minutes away from the Gorilla group. The words from his mouth were not even cold and we could see the scrubs and bracken shaking.

Adrenalin pumping I crouch down and get the camera ready and as I look up, I look straight into the eyes of a pregnant female Gorilla standing about 5 meters away from us. As I turn to our one guest, I just see pure joy and emotion on her face, and before I can say anything one of the other guests points behind me and a mother and baby Gorilla walk out on the path in front of us. The trekkers and guides tell us the baby is about 4 months old. WOW, WOW, WOW what an experience, having a family of gorillas a mere 5 meters away from you in the wild!Just as we think things can’t get any better, we have the huge adult male silverback Gorilla come by and join his family feeding while we just all watch in silence.  Our hour spent with these large apes was an experience of a lifetime and ranks as one of my ultimate wildlife experiences!It is a real privilege to see these endangered great apes in the wild. This Mountain race of Gorilla: Gorilla beringei beringei is restricted to a part of the Virunga range, straddling the DR Congo/Uganda and Rwandan borders. The Mountain race is marginally larger than the three lowland forms and the coat is longer. We enjoyed this experience as part of our Birding and Primate Safari in Uganda: https://naturetravelafrica.com/uganda/ and https://naturetravelbirding.com/uganda-birding-safari/

The Gorilla experience was summed up by my guests as one of the best things they have seen in their lives and the slogan of “We came, we trekked, we saw and we conquered” was cheered when we received our Gorilla trekking certificates at our Gorilla graduation after the trekking. Written by: Marc Cronje (Nature Travel Guide)