My taxi driver warned me several times to be ready at 5am, he would be knocking on my door! I was up at 4.50, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gear and waited! typical, had he ran off with the deposit I had paid him or was he just useless? I called his number, nice waste of £2.40 to hear him say he would be there in 1 minute. Bleh! My mobile provider had also finally mailed me to say they wouldn’t unlock my phone as agreed theh day before I left as it was second hand. C**nts! He showed up and off went down some very poor roads. Very slow and no chance for any extra sleep on this leg, there were potholes and rocks galore. 5 am was a pretty stupid time to leave since we were there a good hour before time, I got him to play me some African music on the way up and he didn’t seem to mind the same 6 songs repeating about 10 times. At least it wasn’t Michael Bolton!

I bought him some breakfast, it was about a quid each and we waited for the other 7 people to arrive. Eventually a Australian Couple, Darren and Amanda from Brisbane showed up with their driver. Dressed in nice new jungle gear too! :p They took a lot of holidays too since they both owned their own businesses, and were usually independant travellers but this time they had opted for a tour. Fair enough, not many backpackers would be splurging £200 on an hour with some gorillas anyway! However I got the impression this wouldn’t be the kind of trip my mother would find easy, and the group we would be visiting were the newest and potentially most challenging to get to. The other 5 people never showed up and after a quick pep talk hired a couple of porters to carry our stuff and drove about 4km to the path. I guess I could have asked for my $25 park entrance fee back as I never actually went into the park because the gorillas had recently moved just out of it. They weren’t sure why, possibly because of competition with another nearby group but they were still pretty close.

We began the hike down the rather steep trail to the bottom of the valley passing through fields and past a few houses along the way. The gorillas are all guarded to protect them from bush meat poachers, and also keep them away from the locals who, as you can imagine, woud rather not have to deal with huge 200 pound apes eating their bananas and terrorising them all the time. We were also protected by a couple of guards carrying AK-47s, which was reassuring since we were only a few kilometers from the Congo, and a few years ago several tourists were killed in the same park by Congolese guerillas. Lots of dangerous types then! With straining knees we reached the steam on the valley floor in about half an hour or so, crossed over and walked for another 10 minutes to where the rest of the guards and guides were waiting. We could see their camp nearby and passed through a few old gorilla nests where they slept before. They were waing in a recently slashed and burned area on the hill side and we dropped our coats, staffs and non essential items, got hydrated and went gorilla hunting!

Well, it didn’t take long, about 30 seconds and there was a gorilla sitting next to the clearing munching away on leaves! He didn’t seem at all bothered by us, quite happy to sit and eat, posing for photos. Darren had a nice digital SLR with a good zoom, and I reckon he got some great shots. I blasted away on my little canon. 2 minutes of playing model was enough and he rolled into the bush in search of better food and less attention. We crossed over a rather tiny plank over a small gully into the uncleared jungle and found another gorilla under a bush also eating. I guess thats what they do best :p We got pretty close, about 3 meters and the guide hacked us a better path so we could see him better. There were other babies in the tree that we could also see, not too clearly but making a lot of movement. We moved back down the valley in search of the boss. We saw him briefly along with a baby, but he disappeared quite quickly and we carried on to the stream below. It was great fun, the jungle is no barrier if you’ve got a big machette and dont mind getting dirty. We were slipping down near vertical slopes and pulling ourselves through thick bush, sploshing in bogs and trying to avoid big holes as we clambered over big fallen trees. There was another gorilla up the other side over the river and we could see the bushes move as he pulled leaves from the branches but we couldn’t see him. It was ‘too steep’ to get up and have a look, but it wasn’t that bad. We set off back the way we came looking for the dominant silverback we lost just earlier. The babies were still swinging away, but you couldn’t get a good photograph.

We hacked a new path and found a way to the boss, Nkuringo, you could just see him through the trees. Our guide from the office, the little guy with the machette and Darren up in front about 5 meters away from us while I was gallantly helping Amanda through the brush when there was a mighty roar and Nkuringo stood up and confronted the 3 guys in front! I was glad I wasn’t in front as a fully grown male gorilla showing his teeth and lungs to you is probably not the most pleasant experience! Darren aparently got quite a shock (but no photos :{). The video was going and although I didn’t capture it I certainly got the sound! The guides were not too bothered though and just roared back at him, I guess they knew not to take any shit :p After we changed our underwear we sneaked up a bit more and found him happily eating away again in the clearing and you could see more movement in a nearby bush. We snapped away as the hour was nearly up and boy had it gone fast! We edged closer and Nkuringos son came out and started to play in front of us! Tiny little fella was rolling around and beating his cheat just a few feet away with his father watching patiently in the bush nearby. Cool!

We snapped away like mad until Amanda and my memory card ran out. Thank goodness for the video, which was better in the low light anyway. I had stupidly forgotten my tripod. At least I had spare batteries though! Eventually we had to go and left them in peace. Those gorillas are raking it in at £200 an hour, but what a great job! :p We hiked back up the hill, and I regretted hiring a porter but they made out it was miles and really difficult, which it wasn’t. Still Amanda had a hard time of it and they both had quite a trek to go as they had optioned a 2 hour walk through the NP rather than drive 5 hours around it. I was kicking myself for not being prepared for a lift north as they were heading my way. I had thought it possible but with my stuff everywhere and laundry being done it was not possible. Oh well. We got to the top and I went with them to the start of the trail in their 4WD, sending my taxi driver back to the office to wait for me. We had swapped emails and I promised to send them a DVD of the gorillas in exchange for their photos. Which is good because I suspect my photos were rubbish! They set off with their armed guards and since i haven’t heard about any tourists being kidnapped assume they arrived safe and well.

The cheeky s.o.b. of a taxi driver had accepted my suggestion I buy him lunch to the tune of 7,500 schilling, and told me there was nothing left to eat. I can believe it, the lying git would have cleared them out *if* he had eaten anything. It was impossible to spend 7,500 on lunch so my intention of tipping him went right out the window. Pity, I intended to give him more than he swindled out of me, pity for him anyway. And he cost me about 9,000 since i rang him when he was late! And he sealed his fate when we arrived back at the hotel and I struggled my bags, coat, sandals and various stuff off the back seat while he just sat there. When I managed to get it all in my hands he offered to help, nice one, goodbye….muppet! Back at the hotel, after i got over my heart attack over how much they had charged me for doing a few items of laundry I was soon tracked down by Joseph and we hammered out a deal for the following day. Local pygmy village, climb up a old volcano and off to see the fish otters in the nearby lake. We’d have a motorbike, I could drive if I wanted to.



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