A Gorilla Safari Ranks High On The List

After two hours of trekking through the jungle they found the gorilla family and watched as the playful babies cavorted only about a metre away from them while the adults, including the huge silverback, hung back and growled if they got too close.

But the silverback eventually warmed to the human visitors and in the final minutes of the hour allotted to visit, he was chewing on bamboo shoots only a few feet away.

Nate and Anna were awestruck by the unforgettable privilege to come so close to these rare mountain gorillas...

But she wasn't about to give up and once they had reached the place where the gorillas had spent the night she knew they were close. And then suddenly dark shapes appeared in the forest in front of them.

It was the whole gorilla family, sitting peacefully together. One of the females got up and walked directly towards Miranda, only stopping to sit down and eat when she was about two metres away...

Larry booked his gorilla safari trek permits through Mahrit at the Global Interlink travel agent in Kampala who he highly recommends.

It is possible to book your own gorilla safari permits through the Uganda Wildlife Authority offices but then you have to organise your own transport to Bwindi which can be a challenge. Bwindi National Park is a 10 hour drive from Kampala...

They managed to get within 5 metres of the huge silverback gorilla who studiously ignored them while feeding.

The best thing they saw was a mother and her baby playing in the grass but Ross got too close for the mother's comfort to take pictures and she charged.

The guide warned them to stay still and not run (never run if a gorilla charges towards you because it will take that as an invitation to complete the charge) and the concerned mother gorilla stopped short...

The silverback was in a tree when they found the group and he climbed down and disappeared into the bush.

A baby gorilla was very curious and came closer to pose and show off its tree climbing skills before its mother scooped it up and moved further away for safety...

But she maybe got too close. It had just started raining and to escape the downpour Hannah stood under a tree while watching the gorilla family playing.

Suddenly the downpour strengthened unnaturally and on instinctively looking up Hannah realised that she was being peed on by a gorilla in the tree...

The silverback of this group is called Mwamira and they managed to see him in all his muscular glory. The rest of the family including three baby gorillas romping in the trees were all in attendance too. Kaila went on this gorilla trip on her birthday and it's one she will never forget...

He says the hike is no easy task, what with no path visible and the only way through is by following the clearing made by the guide as he goes along.

For Mike, the most amazing sight was that of the silverback sitting a short distance away watching them intently. At roughly 200kg in weight and nearly 2m tall, one can imagine why seeing this boy would evoke certain feelings of awe.

The silverback at one point charged at their group, to lay claim to his authority over the visitors, but to Mike's great relief the gorilla merely let out some wind in what created a loud enough roar to be heard for miles…

December 2007
Rita and Joe

Source: Traveleor

For them, having the chance to interact with mountain gorillas was definitely the best part of their visit to the country. Watching these beauties in their natural habitat, playing with each other and caring for their young, they were particularly fascinated by how much these glorious animals have in common with humans.

Not long after they sighted the group, they discovered that one of the females belonging to the family was standing behind them, leaving them in her path towards the rest of the family. Rita writes that they were told to just quietly sit and let her pass, but as luck would have it, Joe was seated right on her path. A little nudge from the gorilla signalled time to get up, and Joe did so very slowly, to move out of her way and let her through…

Gorilla group name
Sabinyo group: 11 members

It was the silverback that they saw first, perched up high in the bamboo gathering foliage for consumption. At their arrival he immediately turned his head towards Francois and after a brief exchange of throaty noises went back to eating.

Although the gorilla safari rules prescribe a 7m distance between visitor and gorilla, Debra says that particularly the young ones do come closer than that, often reaching out to touch the visitors in a playful manner.

She reports that it is as though time loses meaning when faced with these gentle animals where every moment counts and every instance is filled with family, food and survival. The western rule of sixty seconds in a minute simply does not apply here, but sure enough, after one hour their time was up and their heads filled with a most memorable encounter…

Permits are expensive, but Simon reports that this money goes towards not only the protection and conservation of the animals and their environment, but also to further improve and maintain living conditions and healthcare for the people living there. It seems there is a steady rise in the number of newly born gorillas and that if anything, the community seems to be working together to keep the area free from poachers.

Simon was blown away by the sheer magnitude of a silverback getting up to discipline a group of young gorillas whose playing got a little too wild, to think that something of that size and might has so many traits similar to that of us humans. Rachel tried to double her own size by latching on to whoever of their group was closest, so as to not to feel as small as we are in comparison with these giants. They say that the gorilla safari was well worth it and one that they would undertake again at the drop of a hat…

First sighting hiking time
1 hour

After an hour's walk, Charlie began wondering whether they would get to rest before continuing on, getting tired from hiking, when the call came that the group was spotted. Moments later they were faced with the amazing sight of a gorilla moving through their path towards the rest of the family.

Charlie got to see the only set of twin babies habitant in the mountains at the time. They also saw the dominant silverback.

Charlie's anticipation of aggression on the part of the gorillas was quickly eased when seeing the gentle nature with which they carry themselves through their daily activities in the mountains…

For Ryan this meant that he had his first sighting in under two hours of the start of his gorilla safari. He saw the silverback taking a nap, some of the juveniles having mock fights and twins that were newly born, even though he couldn't tell why those two were twins and the rest weren't...

It was feeding time and the whole family was snacking on branches of bamboo and eucalyptus except the silverback who decided to mate with one of his harem of females.

Matt also saw a one month old baby suckle from his mother and examine his hands and feet with focused interest just like a human infant would...

So they are in a position to offer good advice from extensive experience, including getting fit before a gorilla safari. Joe writes that although it is not always an arduous feat, it can be quite daunting, especially for those who are not used to it.

He says that although an hour per viewing seems like a short amount of time, it always ends up being the hour of a lifetime and that as the seconds pass one clean forgets about time just being happy to take in the awe inspiring magnitude of the gorillas in their natural habitat.

They had an encounter with a silverback that caused quite a stir and although Joe did not for a moment feel threatened or in danger, this animal's need to clarify his position as head of his family made for added excitement when on two occasions he toppled visitors out of the way. Luckily everyone was left unharmed, and if anything only a little shaken…

The vegetation is also pretty thick and Markim complains about being stung by super sized stinging nettles on the two and a half hour hike but all the effort is worth it when the gorillas finally come into view...

Three armed guards also accompanied Stuart's group from the start of their trek.

Stuart watched the gorillas eat, sleep, groom, mate, play, which included falling out of trees and one particularly funny individual who had wind...

Because of the rain the gorillas were still in their overnight nests of vegetation when they found them.

There was a female gorilla sheltering a tiny baby from the rain and looking very displeased with the bad weather. She kept raising her head to look at Graham and Rachel who were about 2 metres away from her enjoying this amazing experience.

Charles the silverback suddenly got up from his nest, beat his chest and started feeding on the surrounding vegetation followed closely by the rest of his family. The last image after the allotted hour was of a tiny baby with brown eyes watching them from under its mothers arm...

The rest of the family was also strikingly human as they went about their daily business.

There are eight habituated gorilla groups in the Virungu mountains that it's possible to visit on a gorilla safari but in an ironic twist it's this very tolerance to humans that makes them particularly vulnerable to poaching...

She says the highlights of her trip were the gorilla trek and the chimps on Ngamba Island, but adds that Lake Nakuru (Kenya) was a good experience.

Anna warns that people intending to go on an overland safari should be aware of their adaptability to the travel conditions, as she saw several people underestimating the trip ("or over-estimating their capabilities. The gorilla trek is quite hard for example.")

Most of the roads in the Congo are dirt and badly potholed so it turned into a three hour very bumpy ride before they got to the Virungu National park.

But it was all worth the effort when they came across the gorilla family which included a couple of silverbacks, three babies and their mothers and aunts. They came to within a few yards of the gorillas and for them it was an experience they will never forget...

The rule on a gorilla safari is that you are supposed to keep a distance of seven metres but the gorillas don't know that so they often come closer.

Another mother and child gorilla were taking a much too keen interest in the bags that the human group had left piled up in the jungle and one of the guards moved closer to the bags to dissuade her from picking them up.

Rita says that nothing can prepare you for your first sighting of the gorillas through the trees and to watch their eyes and facial expressions is very moving because they are so humanlike...

The town of Kisoro in Uganda was used as the staging post for this gorilla safari because it is so close to the Congo border.

Janice, Jordan and six other travelers were taken by land rover on the two hour road trip to the national park chaperoned by a pickup truck full of heavily armed guards wearing camouflage outfits.

After an hour of fast marching through the forest they came across the gorilla family and Janice moved closer to take a photograph of the silverback.

Suddenly he rose, swinging his massive arms and bellowing at the top of his lungs he came crashing through the undergrowth straight towards her.

She was on the point of running away in abject terror (who wouldn't) when the guide whispered to her with his hand on her back, "Don't run".

With one metre left to go he bellowed one more time, stopped, turned and walked back to his original position to resume eating as if nothing had happened. Janice had survived a silverback charge on her gorilla safari...