After breakfast, we picked up our boxed lunches and put them in our backpacks along with our extra water, bug spray, and everything else we may need for a trek for the mountain gorillas. A couple of weeks before, the UWA posted on Facebook that a new baby gorilla had been born in Bwindi National Forest, and I was hoping that I would be assigned to the family group that had the baby. Since I would have to be assigned to the "easy" group, I felt that was probably unlikely, but a girl can hope!
We got to the park, and I looked at the exhibits on the walls. There was a map of Uganda showing where we were, a list of rules (which included, as with the chimps, that we must be masked when around the animals to lessen the risk of any human diseases being transmitted to the animals that most closely share our DNA - the apes), and a map of where the various families were located at the last checkin. They have guards who live with them 24/7/365. These guards switch out in shifts and don't live in the forest themselves 24/7/365, but there are armed guards with them at all times to protect them from poachers. The gorillas do move, though, so even though the guards are with them and have phones and ways to communicate with the guides, you still have to follow where they are going, and you could be following for a while before they decide to stop and just hang out for a while. It's not as "hit or miss" and relying on skilled trackers as one might think, though.
For a little background, the mountain gorillas live in limited areas in East Africa. The most populous and easiest to reach the habituated families is in Uganda in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The most famous location is in the Virunga Mountain chain, which is in the southwest corner of Uganda, where Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet, all sharing parts of those mountains. This chain is where Dian Fossey studied the mountain gorillas, initially in the Congo, moving to Rwanda after being captured by the Congo military and freed in Kisoro, Uganda. Currently, the fees charged by the parks of the various countries to visit the habituated families is $1,500 US in Rwanda, $800 US in Uganda, and $400 US in Congo. There is an okapi reserve in the DRC that I would have liked to see, but there is significant violence and danger in the DRC between the continued conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups that made headlines with the war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda back in the 1990s and the fighting over mineral resources, such as cobalt, copper, zinc, and other minerals used in electronics and clean energy. The DRC is not considered a safe place at this time, even by my loose standards. Maybe one day I will be able to visit the okapi, but it just wasn't meant to be on this trip.
When you visit the gorillas, you spend however many hours you need trying to reach the family to which you are assigned. Once you reach them, you get to spend one hour with them, and then you trek however many hours you need to get back to your starting point. I believe those rules are consistent across all three countries. You can do a habituation trek instead of the normal one. Those families are generally further away and they aren't as accustomed (habituated) to people as the other families are. For habituation, you spend four hours with your family, following them around as they move (which they often do because they aren't yet so accustomed to people).
So we went to the park and sat for the briefing. At the end of the briefing, we were assigned our groups and families. I knew which family had the baby, so I was elated when I was assigned to the Habinyanja family, the one with the baby! So we all got back in our vehicles, and our group met at the meeting point for our family. If you look at the map of Uganda, you can see that the park entrance, where we had our briefing was in Buhoma, where the arrow is. If you look at the other map, you can see that the Habinyanja family is noted to be southeast of Buhoma. We drove about 45 minutes northwest, meeting up with our group and getting our porters at 0°58'32" S, 29°41'15" E, which plots on the map here, not where the family "dot" was on the other map (roughly where the blue picture icon is on this map screenshot):
I don't think they updated their maps very often, but they do, in fact, know where the families are! We didn't have to walk far. We hired our porters and headed a few hundred meters up the dirt road and saw evidence of the grass being trampled down by a large group of animals about the size of gorillas recently crossing that road. So, we followed their path. About 15 or 20 minutes later, we start seeing gorillas in the trees, and they started coming down from the trees. One of the first ones down was the mommy with the new baby! Our guide said we were lucky to see her at all because most groups just have to take their word that there's a baby in the family!
After she got around that tree, you could see her and the baby a little better for the rest of her careful trip down to the ground.
I just loved watching them come down from the trees, so here are some more videos of their arrival.
Once they all got to the ground, mommy and baby went over to a spot on the other side of some bushes and trees, away from us. The guides and guards respected her desire for some privacy and time away from her cousins, the humans. That's okay. There was plenty more to see. This family had two silverbacks (which is very uncommon) and the primary one settled himself just a few feet (not meters) away from me. Other groups were scattered throughout. I took loads of pix! Here are a few.
Eventually, one of the adult females walked over to the silverback. He stood up and looked at her for a while. The guide said that was how they showed love or fondness. Then he laid down and she came over to groom him. She may soon be ready to breed, and she has chosen the primary silverback to be her mate. It's woman's choice in these families, but the male must consent!
Not long after this romantic interlude, Mommy apparently decided she liked us and wanted to show us her baby, so she came out, accompanied by her friend, and she posted herself up against a tree that was pretty central to her cousins, the humans. The guides were pretty sure she was intentionally presenting the baby to us, as a proud mother would!
You can hear the guide in the background telling us to back up. That's how close she came to us! It was sooooo amazing! I felt so honored that she decided to show us her brand new, 2-week-old baby!
A few minutes later, the primary silverback started walking around. He charged toward us. I had to step back, though we were supposed to stand our ground when he did that. If I hadn't stepped back, he would have knocked me over, though! I wasn't the only one who stepped back. Guess what, though. I didn't film it! Shocking, I know! The guides said it was just a show of dominance and that he does that fairly often; that nobody was in any danger. And once he made the charge, he grunted and turned around, losing interest in us, so there was clearly never any danger. The guides said it likely had nothing to do with the baby being out or us getting too close or anything like that. Just the way silverbacks behave, especially in that family where there are two silverbacks.
Soon, our hour (plus a few minutes) was up, and we had to go back. I was mud from head to toe, so after eating my lunch, I took a shower. There was a massage place just down the street, and I got a deep tissue massage that just hit the spot, working out some issues I had been having, especially with my right shoulder, but also cleared up some concerning feelings in my feet.
In the afternoon, we took a walk down the hill to see the Batwa Tribe. Most people know them as the African Pygmy Tribe. In the 1990s, after Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was taken by the government to be used as a park and the animals inside the park gained additional protection, the Batwa, who lived in the park, were evicted. This is a nice way of saying that all their stuff was confiscated, and their land was taken. Unfortunately, the government has not compensated them for the land or used resources to help teach them another way of life. Some non-government organizations (NGOs) have come in and brokered deals for land for them and have taught them how to raise some crops and livestock, making significant substitutes, such as goats in place of duikers, domestic pigs in place of warthogs, and chickens in place of wild and endangered birds. The NGO that did our tour, the Batwa Empowerment Village, has also instituted schools to try to teach the children how to read, do math, and hopefully one day be able to advocate for their culture. They are teaching skills to the adults, including the women, and helping the king learn some economics to try to govern his village in the new normal in which they find themselves. They are also trying to teach them about nutrition, but some of the children still had distended bellies from malnutrition. The NGO representative said they try, but the parents have to be willing to feed the non-traditional, healthier foods to their children. They cannot force it.
Our NGO representative met us at the lodge, and Gody drove us to the beginning point. At that spot, armed guards have to come with us to protect us from potential wildlife that may come out of the forest. When we got to the Batwa village ground, we were met by the king, the chief, an elder, and a young man who was born just before the eviction.
They demonstrated a couple of traditional hunting methods with minimized traps and small logs used as stand-ins for the prey. This was a ground trap that raises the prey into the air after which the hunters kill it with their spear. They lick the blood off their spears to show that no part of the animal will go to waste.
Once inside the village proper, we saw some traditional housing and tried our hand at shooting a traditional bow and arrow at a model prey. To determine who was a hunter and who was a gatherer, each person got three tries to hit the target. We were allowed to stand much closer than they did! I got the target on the third try!
We saw where the women are learning to sew on old treadle sewing machines and some were learning to weave. They have a craft shop where their wares are for sale, including the traditional masks, some of which are authentic and depict former kings, queens, and chiefs. This is part of the Batwa history, but the king is willing to sell them to raise money for his people. I would have loved to have one, but I didn't want to take his authentic artifacts. Besides I had no place to put it in my luggage!
At the end, they showed us how they make fire, which is a skill they are very proud of, and performed a traditional dance for us.
I just loved how the children came running out when they heard the drums signifying time to dance!
By the end, the king had his boogie going, too!
It was a very sobering and enlightening experience, and I strongly suggest anyone do this experience if you find yourself in Bwindi. Maybe even purchasing something from their craft shop. I got a woven kitchen trivet.
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