Gorilla - part 2 There are about 700 Mountain Gorillas left in the world. Half live on the eastern face of the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda and Uganda. The rest live on the other side, in The Congo ... where tourists dont usually go. There are government park rangers living in the mountains, constantly tracking the movement of the various gorilla families and trying to protect them from poachers. When you head up the mountain, your guide is in touch with the rangers in order to find the gorillas, who are constantly on the move. A family will eat or rest in one location for a few minutes or a few hours and when the dominant silverback decides to move, the whole family will follow. Sometimes they move a few feet, sometimes more. You sort of wonder why they move as they are always immersed in lush green stuff but I suppose there are certain types of plants they prefer and they move to find a new supply of the good stuff. The first part of the climb is up through land which has been hand-terraced and cultivated by the locals, who grow a variety of things ... primarily potatoes. Each of the seven persons in the group has a porter to help carry the camera gear and sometimes assist over the large rocks (the lade in gray is my wife, Paula). After about an hour, you reach the perimeter of the National Park. At that point you climb over a 5 stone wall and enter the jungle. From there on your guide literally hacks a path through the jungle till you find the gorillas. The total climb up can take from two to six hours, depending on which gorilla family you are headed to. Our trek up the first day took about two and a half hours.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 05:27:33 +0000
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