We did the Gorilla Walk on Sunday, and it took a two hour drive to get to the National Volcano Park where Dian Fossey lived during her life of conservation and preservation of the gorillas and their habitat. We hiked for 4 hours to see the gorillas, and let me say, it was the toughest, but most rewarding thing I have ever done. We were driven to a certain point (on a VERY bumpy road, but we had a Land Cruiser that was a TANK) where we were dropped off and continued to walk to the end of the conservation park, which was surrounded by a stone wall to keep gorillas inside and other animals out.
We hiked and hiked and hiked through the jungle, thinking the gorillas had moved and we wouldn’t see them, but we saw a mother and her baby, and as I’ve found, they are more human than we thought. As we approached, momma gave us the middle finger. Maybe that was her friendly welcome? I think so (: We followed down the terrain to see the rest of the family. There were 11 females, 1 silver back male and 10 babies ranging from 8 months to 3 years old. We had a German family on our tour through the jungle and they were a hoot. It was so much fun, and I could not ever gain an experience like that elsewhere in the world.
The mountain that the gorillas live on sits within three countries: Uganda, the DRC and Rwanda. It is HUGE, as shown in the photos, but it is so grand and gorgeous. The movie Gorillas in the Mist really captures the living conditions the jungle provides.
Just to give an idea of the depth and the strain of the journey, there are photos of the jungle from above as well as in, and there are some of us standing on brush that was hacked down with a machete so we could walk through it. From where we were standing to take photos of the family, we were about 8,000 feet up the mountain and about 500 feet up from the very bottom of the canyon between the volcanoes. I swear I was Indiana Jones.
