And Finally…the Mgahinga Park Gorillas!

Our permit for viewing gorillas was for the Nyakagezi gorilla family in Mgahinga National Park, which is about 5km from Kisoro, and is part of Virunga mountain range. These mountains (extinct volcanoes) span three countries, Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo, and are home to about half of the last remaining mountain gorillas. (The rest are in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.):

We stayed in the very lodge where Diane Fossy sometimes stayed when she came down from the mountain, Travellers Rest, basic but very friendly, comfortable and had a nice garden.

Yummy banana pancakes:

The resident dog, Sushi, is over 15 years old and has spent her life at Travellers Rest. She was found as a puppy in the streets and taken in by the hotel. She needed a good brush but was living a good life:

She slept in the managers unit but was sleeping at our door every morning when we got up:

The next morning it took us about 30 min to drive 5 km to the park entrance because the roads were incredibly bad… yes, even worse than the road to Kibale, which is interesting considering they say part of the cost of the permits ($800US) is to improve roads…? Luke, our driver, said “these things take time.” It was too rough for pictures, I guess the most important thing is that we made it 😊. Luke was happy too!

Once we got to the parking lot we met our porters for the day, of course you had a choice whether to hire a porter but these are people from the surrounding farms that really need the work, so we each had a porter to carry our daypacks and help us up the mountain. We first had a 20 min hike straight up to the park office where we were greeted by a traditional dance. Such fantastic energy!

Then 18 of us started our trek up the mountain, nine tourists, six porters, the ranger guide and two armed guards, one at the front of the group and one at the back. The five trackers are already on the mountain looking for the gorillas, are in contact with our guide about where they are and what path to take up the mountain. We had to pause occasionally to wait for updates. It was definitely steep and took us about 40 minutes.

Our porters, Steven, Avery, Winston and Ben (no pic of Ben and Carleen, they were so fast we didn’t catch a shot!):

We knew we were close when we heard the trackers whistling us in. Then suddenly you could hear a lot of noise coming from the trees nearby, two younger gorillas in the trees feeding. It was difficult to see them clearly even though we were so close, about 15 feet. You could definitely tell they were very large animals in the trees! I can’t believe the branches can hold their weight!

We continued up the mountain about 50 feet more and first came upon Mark, the leader of the group, a 47 year old silverback. He was napping in a nice little clearing in the trees. The first thing that really shocked me is he didn’t look that big considering he weighed 450 kg, not as big as I would have expected, but his feet definitely were! It was crazy to see huge human shaped feet and hands on this big black and silver ball of fur!!

There was a female near him that apparently had joined the family recently, leaving another family of gorillas:

We watched him for awhile as the two gorillas move around occasionally to get comfortable, then while we were looking at a gorilla in the tree close by, an older female gorilla walked right by some members in our group (like within a foot!) and sat down for us to watch and take pics and videos! It was incredible! When they say habituated, I figured we would be watching them from a distance through the trees. We had binoculars, but certainly did not need them!

As we were watching this female (35 years old) one of the large silverbacks vying for leadership of the group came down from above and plunked himself in the clearing right behind us, 5 feet away! He wanted some attention 😅. I honestly think he posed for us! He was huge!

After he laid down for a sleep the guides called us back down the mountain to the younger gorillas and we got to see them playing, and then Mamma rolling down the hill to relax by them.

Finally we went back up to Mark and the leaders and said thank you for letting us be around them for the hour, and then back down the mountain we went.

On the way down we saw a few different colorful chameleons:

It’s hard to describe the experience of being so close to such powerful beasts, and yet we sensed they actually liked the attention. The trackers and ranger guides have definitely formed some powerful bonds with them and we were told later that if anyone else approached them, they may not have been so calm. They know and like the trackers and rangers they are familiar with. This particular family, called the Nyakagezi’s, has been habituated since the 1970’s, of course none of those original members are still alive and all of the ones we saw were born into this human-gorilla relationship. Thanks to this endeavor to habituate and open up viewing of these mountain gorillas, there are more than 1000 of them left in the world, all in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Poaching still happens, but it’s rare and the economies of these regions depends on these gorillas, and that’s is what is keeping them alive ❤️.

NEXT STOP: Lake Kivu, Rwanda