THEY HAVE NO TAILS!
(Gorilla
Tales Part 6)
Travel Tales Index - Gorilla Tales Index - Uganda
Pix - Rwanda Pix - Zanzibar Pix
The Ugandans we have met are extremely warm and friendly. The phrase we have heard most often is "you're welcome here". We come from such different cultures and backgrounds, that it is difficult to make true friends, but let me list some of the questions we have been asked or statements that have been made:
Can whites get AIDS?
Does everyone have remote control cars (like James Bond)?
Are there any cows in
Do you have rice/bananas/corn in
What is the weather like?
How much does a plane ticket to
How do I get a visa to
Don't machines make everything in
Do you like Bush?
Why is
What is your mission here?
There are no Muslims in
There are no blacks in
When you marry in
All the roads in
Everyone in
There are no forests in
The belief that all Americans are rich and that there are no blacks in
America are probably the two strongest held views. Questions about Bush and war
with Iraq are common. The question we have never been asked (unlike
Now, back to our travels. From Lake Bunyoni, we hired a car to take us for the four hour, 120 km ride over the dusty, bumpy road to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Buhoma. It was a great deal, because the alternative would have been the back of a pick-up truck which while providing great views of the country-side would have provided every part of our bodies with great amounts of dust! As it was, when we arrived and got our packs out of the trunk, they were totally coated in dust. But, better the packs than ourselves!
We stayed at Bwindi View Gorilla Nest and Campsite for about $12. Pit latrine, but the shower consisted of an old gas tank removed from a car and held about ten feet above the ground by a scaffold. It had a showerhead coming out of the bottom. They climbed up a ladder, poured in a bucket of hot water and we were in heaven.
Just for kicks, we checked out the Abercrombie and Kent (an upscale tour operator) accommodations. We asked the receptionist about having dinner there. He asked if we would like to see the rooms. We figured - sure, why not? Edwin, the manager, gave us a little tour of the place. They have 8 luxury tents for a total capacity of 16 guests, with 20 staff! So what are "luxury tents"? Imagine a 30 x 20 polished mahogany platform with a 20 x 20 tent on the platform and a 10 x 20 "front porch". Inside the tent are two king size beds with sheets and spreads that could be from The Ritz, table, chairs, nightstands with lamps, ceiling light, fan and curtained windows. We walked to the back of the tent to check out the bathroom. It looked nice, but pretty standard - sink, toilet, shower & plush terry cloth robes. Edwin said to me, "Open the door on the left". There was a full length claw foot tub with candles for a nice soak after a long day of gorilla tracking! They did an excellent job of recreating the original safari feeling that the British explorers of the 1800's experienced. I could be quite comfortable here!
Back to our humble accommodations and up early the next morning to go gorilla tracking. After meeting up with our guide, 3 guards with AK-47s, two trackers and the other four tourists, we headed out to go tracking. Of course, we first had to go for a ride in a pick-up to the starting point for the hike. Our entourage, plus a few other people getting rides, etc and we had 15 people in the back of a short-bed (6') pick-up truck with 3 riding in the cab. The guards were to prevent a repeat of 1999 where 8 tourists plus a guide were killed by Congolese rebels who had crossed into Uganda. We were happy to have the guards along!
Much of the hike was on pre-existing trails. The guide had a Garmin GPS with
the previous day's coordinates for the gorillas. Some of the trackers ran ahead
to find where the gorillas were while we slogged along on the trail up (and I
mean right up, with no switchbacks!) the mountain. Bwindi Impenetrable forest,
aside from the trail, is pretty thick with trees, brush, ferns, plants with
thorns etc. At some point, we left the trail and one of the guides hacked a
path with his machete through the "impenetrable forest".
When we got to within 100 feet of the gorillas we left behind everything - packs, food and water - except our cameras. The rules were: no flash photos, no closer than 5 meters to the gorillas, crouch down if the silverback charges and a maximum of one hour with the gorillas. The gorillas are "habituated" to people. This group has been tracked for about 10 years on a daily basis. Of course, so were the chimps in Kaniyo Pabidi and Kibale and we never got closer than 50 feet, so we'll see!
As we walked toward the gorillas, the first one we saw was the silverback - the dominant male member of the group, weighing 450-500 pounds. We got within 7 meters of him and he stood up on his hind legs and took a couple of steps toward us. We experienced surprise, excitement and a little fear - all in about 5 seconds - until he veered off to the left and walked away from us. It was no problem acting submissive seeing this huge, 6' tall animal heading straight toward you!. I was also quite embarrassed to see that gorillas have no tails! I guess I'll have to change the name of this travelogue series...
We spent the next hour walking around 10 members of the group. Indeed, they are habituated to people. We saw a female nursing a baby that probably weighed about 10 pounds and a number of juveniles playing and rolling around. One juvenile in a tree stood up, beat his chest, started to climb out of the tree but instead fell out and came crashing down! The gorillas spent some time watching us and they made direct eye contact with us. We spent a while watching the silverback sitting on his rump, stuffing leaves into his mouth (he eats about 20 kilos a day of leaves). The hour was up pretty quickly, but the memory will last forever. A two-hour hike down the mountain, another fun pick-up ride and we were back at 5:30PM, having left at 8:30AM.
We decided to splurge on dinner and went with new-found friends Sue & Pauline to Abercrombie & Kent's for dinner ($14/person). The place was beautiful at night. They lit up the whole open air lodge with kerosene lanterns and had a roaring fire going in front of the lodge. Cement pots with little charcoal fires in them scattered around the dining room provided a little warmth against the cool mountain evenings. Edwin, the manager, joined us and we spent quite a while talking about Uganda, its politics and its future. It seems as if things are looking up, there has been stability for the last 10 years and the future seems bright - to him and many others we talked with. His greatest fear was the transition of power in 2006 when the current president (who has been in power since 1986) in supposed to step down and another election take place.
Transport from Bwindi back to Lake Bunyoni/Kabale was not as easy as in the other direction since Bwindi is a relatively unpopulated area. We finally found a pick-up truck to drive Lois, Sue, Pauline and myself back to Kabale for a reasonable price with the agreement that he can pick up an additional 6 people along the way. Two of us sat in the cab while the other two sat in the bed and we switched a couple of times. However, the driver was in a much greater rush than the one that took us to Bwindi. We made the ride in 3 hours, including stops to pick up/drop off people. It was a little bumpy and wind blown in the back!
After picking the bugs out of our teeth when we arrived in Lake Bunyoni, we took a boat to one of the islands on the lake and stayed at a very nice tented camp (sort of like the Abercrombie & Kent set-up except not nearly as luxurious or expensive at $20/night!). Sue & Pauline had stayed there before and highly recommended it.
All night long, we heard the birds, frogs & crickets from inside our tent. Early in the morning, there were canoes all over the lake because it was market day on the mainland and everybody was heading in to buy/sell goods. We took a boat back to the mainland and because of the on-going market, it was easy (sort of) for us to get a ride to Kabale (9km away). We hopped into the back of a pickup filled with burlap bags of potatoes and bunches of bananas. Everyone stood/sat on top of the bags, holding on to each other as the truck bumped its way along to Kabale.
From Kabale, it was a comfortable three hour bus ride to Kisoro, our last
stop in Uganda. The bus driver (and half of the bus) did their grocery shopping
along the way. In one town we stopped for people to buy bananas, in another,
onions, in a third, cabbage! Nearing Kisoro, a number of stunning volcanic
peaks, including Muhavura Volcano, came into view. Unfortunately, when we
arrived, we found out Kisoro is probably the most unpleasant town in all of
Uganda. Kids walk up to you and say "give me money", without even a
"hello" or "how are you", which for
Final Notes on
Spent 27 days in
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$ 970 |
on food, accommodation & transport = $36/day |
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$ 550 |
on Gorilla tracking |
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$ 450 |
on park admission fees, game drives and special tours |
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$1970 |
total expenditure in 27 days. |
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Average Cost For A Room: $13 |
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Total Miles Traveled: 1275 |