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CAPE TIMES
ESCAPE
CAPE TIMES
TUESDAY, APRIL 55, 2014
ESCAPE
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014
the destination
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Uganda
CALLING IN ON
JUNGLE GIANTS WALKABOUT: To reach the mountain gorillas, you first have to hack your way through Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. YOU HAVE one hour to spend with animals that you reach by flying halfway across the continent, driving for a day along potholed roads and spending hours trekking through a jungle that is at times so thick you can’t see the person a few steps in front of you. It does seem like a lot of effort for a 60-minute reward. But when that reward is a faceto-face encounter with mountain gorillas, the great apes that share 98 percent of their genes with humans, you can see why people make the journey. There are less than 1 000 of the critically endangered mountain gorillas left in the wild, and they are only found in three countries – Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The chance to come within a few metres of these creatures while they go about their daily business is a humbling, magical experience. Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (the clue to the jungle’s density is in its name), a lush mist-wreathed mountainous forest, is home to half the world’s population of mountain gorillas, and is where I found myself on a bundubashing trek with seven other wildlife enthusiasts (dressed in varying degrees of camouflage gear) to track the Bitukura gorilla group.
CLOSE ENCOUNTER: Mountain gorillas share 98 percent of their genes with humans.
EYE TO EYE: Contrary to popular belief, mountain gorillas are gentle, says the writer.
Tracking great apes in equatorial Africa is one of the planet’s most magical wildlife encounters – put it on your bucket list, writes SARAH DUFF, who also took the pictures
IN FOCUS: It’s one of the most thrilling wildlife experiences, being up this close to these huge gorillas simply going about their daily business as if you weren’t there at all. We followed guides as they made a path by hacking away at vines and thickets of stinging nettles with machetes. The slippery, vine-scrambling adventure up and down steep slopes left us full of mud, sweating like cold beers and gasping for breath. You never know how long you could hike for before finding the gorilla group you’ve been assigned: it can be anything from 30 minutes to 10 hours. Luckily, we only trekked for a couple of hours before we caught up with our gorillas, who
announced their presence with an aerial missile launched by a scout. A piece of bark dropped on my head and I looked up to see a black blob in the tree above us – the source of the rainfall of bark, leaves and twigs showering down. Before I’d had a chance to get my camera out, the blob lowered itself down the nearest tree trunk like a firefighter sliding down a pole and disappeared into the forest. The big mountain gorilla-spotting moment was over in a few seconds.
Following the blob’s direction, we scrambled up a hill to find the group sitting nonchalantly as if on a picnic, only steps away from us. The huge dominant silverback, Ndahura, munched away contentedly on plant stalks like a serene giant Buddha, his mate Ruhara and her tiny teddy-bear-like 10month-old baby with shiny button eyes rambled through the bushes. Another adult female sat on her haunches with her arms crossed, looking bored, as if she was waiting in the queue for the bank. Above our heads in the tall trees other gorillas were swinging like nimble acrobats in Cirque du Soleil. While we stood there, transfixed, a gorilla came up from behind us and walked through our group to get to her eating spot, thrillingly brushing past my leg as she passed, sitting down a ruler’s length away from my muddy takkies. I felt like I was in a David Attenborough documentary, only
without the narrator’s calm British voice (mine was quivering with excitement and a tinge of adrenaline). None of the game drives or walking safaris I’d done in southern Africa prepared me for coming so close to these huge wild animals. Silverback (adult male gorillas) weigh up to 200kg, and their hands, with boerewors-sized fingers, are bigger than your face. If they wanted to, they could rip you in two faster than you could say “bananas”. Contrary to popular culture, mountain gorillas are gentle (mostly vegetarian) animals who are only aggressive towards humans if they feel threatened. We clicked away, taking hundreds of photos and shooting breathless videos as the gorillas ate, strolled around, played with one another, napped and generally took no notice of us at all. The most surreal thing about watching them is how human-like they are: if you ever needed living
evidence to prove the validity of evolution, this is it. All too soon our hour was up, and we had to leave Ndahura and his group to carry on with their day without a paparazzi entourage. They barely glanced up as we walked away, utterly oblivious to the profound effect they’d had on us. The best thing about gorilla tracking is arguably not the experience itself, but the knowledge that you’re forming a vital component of gorilla conservation. You pay thousands of rand – permits cost $750 (R7 800) in Rwanda and $600 (R6 200) in Uganda – for the privilege of seeing the apes, and the money goes towards paying park rangers, preventing poaching and supporting community projects around the parks. (The Uganda Wildlife Authority does offer discounted rates at times.) A few decades ago, due to poaching and habitat loss, there were an estimated 200 mountain gorillas
The info Getaway Adventures offers a fournight gorilla tracking trip to Rwanda, staying in five-star hotels, from R29 490 per person including return flights from Joburg and the gorilla permit. www.getaway.co.za Nomad Adventure Tours has a more affordable package in Uganda: a six-night camping tour on an overlanding truck to track gorillas as well as chimpanzees for R9 450 (excluding the cost of flights and the gorilla tracking permit). www.nomadtours.co.za
left in the world, and now there are nearly 900, thanks largely to tourists. Going gorilla tracking is the best thing you can do to contribute to the survival of the world’s largest primates. Rwanda and Uganda are the most popular countries to go gorilla tracking in because of instability and outbreaks of violence in the DRC. Both Rwanda and Uganda offer similar tracking experiences (and both countries’ capitals are a fourhour flight from Joburg), but Rwanda’s gorillas are more
CLICK, CLICK: The species is critically endangered but gorilla trekking can form a vital part of gorilla conservation. accessible: the Volcanoes National Park, where they’re found, is reached by an easy three-hour drive from Kigali, whereas Uganda’s mountain gorillas, most of which are in Bwindi Impenetra-
ble National Park, are a day’s drive from Kampala. You have to buy a permit (which you need to purchase several months in advance of your trip) to spend an hour with the apes.
You can organise a gorilla tracking trip independently but a lot of gorilla tracking tourists opt to join a group tour instead, where you don’t have to worry about transport or getting permits on time.