It’s five o’clock in the morning at our lodge on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in southwestern Uganda, and we’re gearing up for our morning of tracking mountain gorillas in the Ruhija section of the park. I’m dressed head to toe in the full panoply of gorilla-safari gear: a fast-drying shirt in a brown-and-orange plaid that I would never wear were I not on vacation but which is in the recommended color range for hiking through the jungle; ditto my lightweight khaki pants; my favorite Italian wool hiking socks, striped in magenta and turquoise, which won’t chafe when my feet get wet (I’ve already tested this); sneakers that have rugged soles and can stand a dunking (ditto); and a new set of gaiters in a flower-power design that, oddly enough, coordinates with my socks. I’m a walking fashion faux-pas but supposedly inoffensive to gorillas. We’ll see.

Add the invisibles: elastic knee braces and generous applications of deodorant, sunscreen, and insect repellent. Then top this outfit with my emerald green rain jacket and a geeky grey hat that keeps the sun off my face and the bugs out of my hair, and I am ready to roll.

Which, after breakfast, is what we do for nearly two hours over bumpy, unpaved roads that provide the “African massage” our guides are always joking about. We can’t see the surrounding terrain in the pre-dawn darkness, but locals are walking along the road to their fields. They carry bundles and baskets in various shapes and sizes, and almost always a heavy hoe, which is the main tool for cultivation here. A few hold small lights — probably cell phones — and some have reflective patches on their shoes or clothing, but they are hard to see. Our infinitely patient and resourceful guide, Hassan, keeps his headlights on low to avoid blinding oncoming pedestrians and to highlight the many rocks and holes in our path. I find I’m mentally helping him to navigate these hazards, clenching and shifting with each bump or bend, which puts me on high alert throughout the trip. Fortunately, people here learn early to make way for vehicles, and we all pass one another without incident.

Getting oriented

It’s light by the time we arrive at our destination in Ruhija. Hassan checks us in. Our hands are sanitized and our temperatures taken and recorded; then we join the twenty-two others who are tracking gorillas here today. We are to be divided into smaller groups, and each will follow a different family of gorillas.

The head ranger provides a brief orientation on the history of the park and the rare animals we’ve come to see. Mountain gorillas are still critically endangered, but their numbers in the wild have grown significantly since serious conservation efforts began in the 1990s. Everything good comes at a price, however. In this case, it was the Batwa forest people who paid that price. The first inhabitants of these mountains, they were displaced and moved into local communities when this national park was “gazetted” in 1991. Now they offer tours to explain their dying culture to tourists.

There are eight guests in each tracking group, plus guides and guards, porters and trackers. We look around and notice that our fellow guests are three thirty-something couples. Craig whispers to me that he’s the oldest, the tallest, and the heaviest of the group. I whisper back that this makes him our group’s silverback — though silverhead might be more accurate!

We are assigned to visit the Oruzogo Family, so named because of their fondness for that particular plant — whatever it is. (Our lead guide, John, told us its scientific name, which I didn’t catch; oruzogo is the plant’s local name.) “Our” gorillas are used to the presence of humans in their forest, and habituation efforts are ongoing in order to make human encounters with these wild creatures as safe as possible for all involved. This morning, professional trackers have gone ahead to scout out the location of our gorilla family, so we pile into our van and drive to the access point.

There we meet our porters, Dennis and January. We have hired them to carry our bags and help us over the rough spots. Craig has manly misgivings about this, but allows himself to be persuaded, since this provides work for local people. I, on the other hand, am perfectly happy to turn over my heavy backpack to January, who is helping me. He hands me a walking stick and we set off across a tea plantation toward the jungle.

Meet the Oruzogos

You never know how far you might have to walk to find the gorillas you’re looking for, but you can request in advance to be put in a group whose gorillas are nearer by or farther away. We asked for the medium group, expecting to walk an hour or two before finding them — and thinking that a little effort would make the finding more satisfying. It turns out, though, that the Oruzogo Family has settled in for a meal on the very edge of the forest. So within five minutes, we see our first gorillas!

How to describe my feelings in that moment? Amazed? Grateful? Delighted? Yes, yes, and YES. And so much more. What makes these encounters so remarkable is how very close we are: only ten feet or so separate us from these near kin. At other times during this visit we are even closer — much closer than the official guidelines stipulate, not that I’m complaining. We’re all masked to protect the gorillas from human maladies and vice versa.

For a while, we are content just to stand around and watch this enormous and powerful animal eat his breakfast. It’s a privilege to be in the presence of something so rare and remarkable — even as we witness the most mundane of his activities. There’s a sense of kinship here and also of otherness.

For me, though, the spell is too soon broken as I switch into paparazzi mode. I struggle to get a good shot — why is there always vegetation right in front of my subject’s face? — and a clear focus. But I click away with everyone else: the thirty-somethings are going for the selfie-with-gorilla, while Craig is shooting video, and I’m looking for a shot where the gorilla is looking up.

The gorilla, for his part, is patently unimpressed with us. It’s a young male, thickly coated in black and plopped down in front of a patch of some sort of plant (oruzogo??), which he is consuming with calm and systematic determination. He pulls up a bunch, munches on its tender roots, then throws aside the stalks before grabbing another bunch. When he’s done with this patch, he gets up and moves leisurely off.

John is now urging us over to see another gorilla — this one a mother with an infant. Behind a thick screen of brush, she, too, is having breakfast. We watch her for a while, but she soon moves off. We also see a youngster climb a tree and settle down in its top.

Into the impenetrable forest

So much for the easy stuff. Now we’re heading deeper into the bush in search of the family silverback — or, rather, both of them, for the Oruzogos have two. Not for nothing is the Bwindi forest called “impenetrable”: the slopes here are very steep, the ground slick with mud in many places, the vegetation dense. And every tree I want to grab for support is covered with prickles. Then there are the bugs.

My porter, January, is shorter than me, slim but strong, and determined to help me. At first, I resist a bit, feeling foolish at having someone hold my hand and help me to place every step. As we head into treacherous terrain, though, I find January’s assistance to be more welcome.

Holding his hand as I head up the first slope, my free hand misses its grasp on the tree I’m reaching for, my sneaker slides off its uncertain footing, and I find myself sprawled on my face — and on my camera — in the dirt. Strong hands help me up. I’m bruised chiefly in the ego; more importantly, my camera, though a bit dirty, is undamaged. It could be worse.

From this point on, though, January — and to some degree, Dennis, who is assigned to work with Craig — are determined not to let me walk on my own. My hands and elbows are firmly grasped, my balance steadied, and my backside occasionally shoved as we make our slow way up the hillside. All this is mostly helpful, if a bit undignified, and I try to be grateful instead of resentful. The guides go ahead to clear some of the brush with machetes. I step where January steps, but it’s still rough going. I’m huffing and puffing by the time we find the first silverback.

The silverbacks

He’s enormous — not as tall as I expected but hefty with a huge round belly. He is breakfasting on a large fern, methodically tearing off a stem, stripping its skin with his teeth, and then munching on the tender interior with apparent enjoyment. He’s making a hearty meal and though he is initially partly obscured by the ferns, he eventually eats most of the screening fronds.

Where they can, the guides pull or cut back the branches that hide our quarry. We tourists crowd around, taking photos — or trying to, in my case. I have not yet mastered my new camera and am slow at getting a clear focus, especially in situations like this where there’s lots of screening greenery. Worse, though, is the fact that after struggling up the hill I’m sweating like crazy under my mask — and this is fogging up my viewfinder! I wipe it off, refocus, and try again. The results are not my best, but I do get a few decent shots. Craig is still shooting video, and he has more success. Here’s a compilation of his best bits:

The silverback eventually heads down the hill, stops briefly for a second course, then moves off. He is followed by a youngster and soon by the family’s other silverback. This one bellows at us for blocking his path (some startled members of our group are barely three feet away from him), then goes swiftly down the slope and out of sight.

Wow. Quite a day — and it didn’t even rain!

The road back

We’ve had our allotted hour with the gorillas, so we make our way back down the hillside, out of the forest, across the tea plantation, and out to the waiting van. Tips all around, then we load up and head out with Hassan.

On the two-hour trip back to the lodge, we can see what was not visible in the darkness of our outward journey. To the very edge of the park, the dense, virgin rainforest has been slashed, burned, terraced, and planted into neat rectangles of bananas, cassavas, beans, and most especially tea. Tea, rather than bananas, is planted on the forest edge. (Gorillas drink very little tea, but most would not say no to a banana — or twenty — to round out their breakfast. Better not to tempt them.)

While some part of me admires this orderly geometry — and I do understand that people have to eat — I feel heartsick seeing the damage to this land, realizing what has already been lost, and knowing that this process will likely continue until all the forested hills around the park have disappeared into agriculture. As the population grows, so too will the pace of deforestation. So today I give thanks for the gorillas, whose presence encourages people to save some of this lush forest — and for the forest, whose preservation helps to save these magnificent beasts.

So many of the challenges we face in life are about finding a balance — on unsteady feet on uncertain ground; between work and the rest of our lives; and between the competing needs of humanity and the rest of the natural world. May we be granted the discernment to make wise choices and the generosity to make space in this world for its other inhabitants. 

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