Face to Face with Magnificence in the Mist

By now the time was 8:45am. We started off through some farmlands and fields hiking towards the mountainous jungle beyond. The fields were planted with two crops; potatoes and pyrethrum flowers. The two crops coexist in same ground – well, potatoes below, flowers above – which allows the local farmers to produce two crops simultaneously. Since the location is right on the equator, there are three growing seasons every year, each four months long.

We reached the point where the fields gave way to jungle. There is a large wall between field and jungle, constructed to keep the farmers from encroaching into the jungle. They can take a lot of land if they’re allowed to expand their fields a few feet each year. The wall stops this practice. As an added benefit, it also makes it harder for the jungle wildlife to come into the fields and eat the crops. It was 9:20am when we crossed over the wall. I was already getting tired. Did I mention the altitude? The car was parked at about 8,600ft. Here at the border between farmland and jungle it was 8,900ft.

Anastais and Mike helped Kathy and me up over the logs and rocks that make up the border wall. As we entered the jungle, we immediately stopped to have a briefing. Eugene warned us about the dangers of the jungle. We were warned about the ants and the many different species of stinging nettles. We were warned about stray elephants and the buffalo. Briefing done, let’s go!

The jungle was thick. It was dense. This was way more difficult than the Amazon rainforests I had trekked through a mere 6 months before. The nettles would sting right through my clothes, and would sting me through my gloves. Some ants got up Kathy’s pants leg. Those little things would hang on and bite hard. Ants and nettles are painful. The pinkie finger on my left hand was starting to swell and burned fiercely inside my glove. The altitude made breathing difficult. At times I became light headed. My lungs ached from lack of air. We were now above 9,000 feet, and it was tough without proper acclimation. Anastais would take my hand and help pull me up some of the steepest trails. At one point he was pulling my hand, and Kathy’s porter, Mike, had his hand on me from behind pushing me up the mountain. The foliage was dense. Thickets of bamboo were all along the path. The terrain was steep. We kept climbing up and up and up. We finally reached the summit, 9513ft. Somewhere along the way, we had crossed the border from Rwanda and were now in the Congo.

We stopped a minute to catch our breath. The view was outstanding. A small valley was below us. The outer fringes of the valley were shrouded in haze and the famous “mist”. We started down the mountain side. It was much easier going down than up, but still difficult. The ground was steep and very slippery. My footing slipped a few times, bringing back those nightmarish memories of that slip and fall in Ireland the year before. That fall resulted in a broken leg, and I had no desire to relive that event, especially in the middle of the jungle.

Eventually the ground leveled out a bit as we approached the valley floor. We were still at 9088ft.

Suddenly the jungle erupted with the sounds of grunting, howling and screaming. Our guide explained that it was the gorillas. It sounded like two males were fighting. He pointed to two trees about 200 yards in front of us and said “the gorillas are there”.

We dropped our hiking sticks, backpacks and all other unnecessary gear. The porters would stay behind, and we would proceed with only our cameras. The excitement was building with every step.

As we approached the outer canopy of the trees, the guide started talking to the gorillas. The trackers approached on different sides, and they too started talking to the gorillas. I mention this because when they talk to the gorillas, they speak the gorilla’s language, not our human Rwandan or English. It was a soothing, moaning sound, accented with soft grunts. This was wholly unexpected and a most interesting surprise to me.

It was now 11:06am. The guide lifted one of the branches of the tree. He motioned for us to step under to the inside of the canopy. I was the second person to go in. At my feet, literally at my feet, was a juvenile gorilla, 5-8 years old. One of the women from Australia came in right behind me. We just stopped and looked. I knew we would be close to the gorillas, but this was CLOSE. The gorilla reached out and grabbed the Australian woman’s jacket, which was draped around her waist like a skirt. It was SO awesome! I knew we would get close, I didn’t know it would be this close.

I moved in a little deeper under the tree to make room for more people. Eugene said to turn around. I did. Two more gorillas were right behind me and I didn’t even see them when I came in. One was a small child and was playing and swinging from a vine. The larger one next to him was more juvenile like the first, and was biting on a vine. I started taking pictures. This was definitely a wow factor.

After few minutes, Eugene then said follow me to see the silverback. We stepped out from under the tree’s canopy and started walking around the tree. We came upon a very large silverback just sitting there. His name is “Ubumwe”. He had his mate sitting with him. She was holding a very tiny baby. Eugene said this was rare. When humans come around they usually hide the baby. He didn’t tell us about the baby in advance because he figured we wouldn’t see it. The baby was about 30 days old. It was tiny and cute!

Ubumwe was impressive. Ubumwe was massive. Ubumwe was huge. Easily he topped the scales at 400-450lbs. Everything about him said strength. He was Silverback #1. This was his family group, and all the other gorilla’s followed his lead. He decided when to eat, where to eat, and when and where to sleep. Definitely the Alpha Male!

As we were snapping away with our cameras just a mere 10ft away, Ubumwe suddenly stood up, roared loudly and beat his chest violently, “thump, thump, thump”. He then turned and walked away. It happened so fast that the only thought running through my head was “wow did that just happen?” Of course it happened so quickly, neither Kathy nor I got a picture or any video, as we had stopped filming not 10 seconds before.

We moved on to Silverback #2, who was not far off to our right. His name is “Gahinga”. I started filming him straight up. If another gorilla was going to beat his chest I wanted it on film. Needless to say I have about 6 minutes of really boring gorilla footage, except for this part. As you can see he walked right by Kathy! After about 6 minutes of filming, I turned off the video to take some stills. Not 2 seconds later, before I had a chance to even switch cameras, Gahinga put on a show. He roared loudly, beat his chest, and like Ubumwe, walked away nonchalantly after he was done. Two juveniles scampered off after him. Kathy managed some stills of the chest action, but again no video. That’s the way it goes in Gorilla Tracking.