Face to Face with Magnificence in the Mist

A Note From Kathy:
After we saw the first silverback roar and beat his chest, I was so excited I cried! I’m a crier. I come from a family of criers. One of the other tourists asked if I was ok… I guess he thought I was freaking out about being there. I was fine…just so very excited!

We moved on to Silverback #3. His name was “Bushokoro”. We observed him eating some leaves from about 15ft away. A couple of smaller gorillas were eating nearby too. We watched them interact as they ate. I was most impressed with how Bushokoro could easily grab a small tree and pull it out of the ground seemingly without effort, and then strip it of the leaves for a tasty bite, then eat the stalk itself.

Silverback #4, named Kajoriti, sat off about 25ft away by himself. He didn’t seem happy, and kept to himself the whole time. Upon close inspection, we saw he was bleeding from his thigh. Apparently he was on the losing end of the fighting we heard earlier as we approached. The trackers and guide made some quick looks at him from a distance, and made notes. They are required by law to report any injuries or sickness in the gorillas. A veterinarian would be dispatched in the morning to come and check him out.

Although we couldn’t get a very good picture of him, Kajoriti has a great story. He became trapped in a poacher’s snare about 12 years ago when he was just a blackback. The trap clamped down hard on his hand, and he lost it from that injury. It did not become infected and he eventually recovered from the wound. But a silverback with a missing hand cannot be a dominant silverback. Therefore he was allowed to stay in the group, as the other silverback did not consider him a threat. This changed the psychology of the group, and it became the first group with more than one silverback. That evolved further so that now there are 4 silverbacks in this group. Normally when a blackback male turns about 12, his fur on the back changes from black to silver in color (hence the name). At that point he is driven from the group, or defeats the current silverback and takes over the group. If he is driven from the group, he wanders the jungles alone, until he can steal a female from another group or two and start his own group.

Kajiriti is Eugene’s favorite gorilla of all. He had been around this gorilla for many years, and even through all the adversity of losing a hand, Kajoriti had managed well. Eugene talked of how Kajoriti’s personality changed after he lost his hand. He became a lot mellower, and did not let much bother him from that point on. He also was much quieter, more passive, and pretty calm. I suppose when you have been around these gorillas for over 15 years like Eugene has, you get to know their personalities quite well.

We continued taking photos, shooting some video and just admiring the beautiful gorillas all around us. It was an amazing adventure. At 12:06pm, precisely one hour to the minute after our first encounter with the magnificent gorillas, it was time to leave. Park rules dictate only 8 people to a group, and 1 hour per day with the gorillas. No more. Eugene and the trackers started leading us away from the gorillas and back to where the porters watched out gear. The entire group was smiling. We all realized how lucky we were to have this experience. We drank some water, snacked on some crackers, and started the hike back.

The hike back was just as difficult as coming. The only thing better was the emotional high we were all on from this wonderful experience. We hiked back up the side of the mountain from which we came, almost 500ft straight up. I have to admit I almost passed out several times, and was very light headed the whole time. Eugene stopped for rest every few minutes so we could attempt to catch our breath. Anastais was a huge help and I don’t think I could have done it without him. There just was not enough air at 9500ft for this type of difficult hiking.

At 1:50pm we reached the border between man and beast, field and jungle. By 2:20pm we were back at the Land Cruiser. Jimmy was there waiting on us, with a big smile, asking how it was. He knew exactly how it was. Pure greatness! As a guide, he is required to undertake the same adventures as the tourists to better understand his own job and how to help us. By 3:15pm we were back at the lodge. We were greeted immediately upon our arrival and the staff took our shoes for cleaning. They were very muddy and very dirty. We were very dirty. We did not care. We were too tired to care. We were too excited to care. We went to the cafeteria and had a very late lunch.

During lunch, we managed to upload two new profile pictures to Facebook from our iPhones. Mine took about 20 minutes to upload, Kathy’s about 45 minutes. The Wi-Fi was pretty bad. After lunch went back to our cabin, showered, put on some clean clothes and started looking at the some 1,500 pictures we had taken that day.

We went to dinner early so we could try to catch up on Facebook. We met up with our fellow gorilla trackers from Australia in the bar lounge area. We visited with them instead of FB for an hour or so until the announcement came that dinner was ready. We all laughed and told stories from our own perspectives of the wonderful adventure we had all experienced that day.

The Australians were leaving the next morning to continue on with their African holiday. Kathy and I were staying behind. We had another day of Gorilla Tracking ahead of us to look forward to!