The absolute highlight of this wonderful excursion was obviously visiting the gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable forest.
Approaching Bwindi National Park, the impenetrable forest
Again, we were divided into two groups and the “oldies” got the slightly easier climb. Never mind that we had to climb for 5 hours – often on hands and knees – up the hill through a jungle which justifies its name at almost every step.
Early on, it still goes through some banana plantations and it’s just the ‘up’ which is a bit exhausting, but sooner or later we leave the human inhabited region and immerse ourselves in the jungle. Thankfully, the weather was our friend and there was no rain. But 25 degrees temperature and around 75% humidity still make it an almighty physical challenge.
On the way up, still standing
One of the initial problems was, that our guides refused to be somewhat specific about the length it would take to actually get to the gorillas. And it took some argument between me and the guide, before he provided some reasonably realistic estimations. That made the whole thing psychologically more tolerable.
We did not know, that the way down would be significantly less difficult. When you crawl up the hill there, the idea is always in your mind, that you have to crawl this all back down again. But to our welcome surprise that was not the case.
And at some stage, after about 4 hours of up hill battle, all of a sudden the command :stop, sit down, keep quiet.
And there they were, our distant relatives going about their own business and not giving much of a damn about the intruders.
A sight and experience never to be forgotten.
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