‘Gorillas in the Mist’

3rd August – 17th August – Uganda

Undoubtedly one of the top highlights of the trip so far! Seeing Mountain Gorillas in the wild is just indescribable and we were lucky enough to see 10, including a Silverback and 2 babies (3 & 7 months old), so cute!!! With only 700 (estimated) left in the World this really was a once in a lifetime experience, though we sincerely hope they continue to succeed in protecting them for future generations. However, every reward has to be earnt and getting to them also has to rank up there as one of the hardest physical challenges to date (think Clare can vouch for that!)! They don’t call the Bwindi NP an impenetrable Forest for nothing and it took us over 1.5 hours of hacking, climbing, slipping and falling to cover approximately 2kms – thank god for porters (ask Clare!). But once with the Gorillas all the pain was quickly forgotten & we spent the next hour watching them at play– truly amazing.

In the past 2 weeks since leaving Jinja we have not only tracked Gorillas but also Chimpanzees (another incredible experience), visited the most powerful waterfall in the world - Murchison Falls, watched lions in Queen Elizabeth NP and met some great new people – Uganda is certainly a top spot & highly recommended!

For those tracking our progress we traveled from Jinja (source of the Nile) on Lake Victoria to Kampala and then headed north to Murchison Falls NP where we tracked the
Chimps, camped at the top of the Falls and cruised the Victoria Nile with all its hippos, elephants and Crocs. From Murchison Falls we traveled South along the edge of Lake Albert and down to Kasese at the foothills of the Ruwenzori Mountains (Mountains of the Moon); continuing south we crossed the equator (probably for the last time) back into the southern hemisphere and through the Queen Elizabeth NP to Bwindi NP and the Gorillas. From Bwindi we have traveled back north through the Queen Elizabeth NP, camping on both the Congo Border and Lake Edward, where after over 3 weeks in the tent we spent one night of luxury at the Mweya Safari Lodge – a sit down toilet and hot bath (1st for me in 7 months!!) were much needed and enjoyed! From Queen Elizabeth NP we again headed south to Lake Mburo NP and then on down to Lake Bunyoni near the Rwandan Border which we will cross into after a few days chilling – well cleaning clothes, fixing Bula etc. All in all not a bad few weeks with Uganda definitely one of our favorite countries so far.

However, I know there are a few of you out there who like to hear about the more ‘gory’ bits of the trip and a bit of suffering! Well, apart from the Gorilla Trek itself, Uganda has also given us a few ‘challenges’ – it has rained at some stage almost every day, mostly late afternoon or at night thankfully but it has resulted in some pretty ‘damp’ sleeping conditions which after 3 weeks continuous camping (our longest stint to date) meant we were getting a tad smelly & moldy! The wet conditions also mean mosquitoes and we have both been well and truly bitten (and boy do they itch). In Kampala we had our first incident of crime when they broke into Bula and stole a rucksack containing all our guidebooks, gps reference data, address book and worst of all the entire daily diary for the last 7 months - there goes that book contract! Finally, poor old Bula decided that here 4WD (for those mechanics out there it was actually the half shaft) would malfunction as we were trying to climb up from a remote campsite at the top of Murchison Falls, 5 hours later after a lot of digging, spinning and pushing (we found a few willing local helpers) we were finally rescued and towed to safety. Thankfully the National Park mechanics managed to fix Bula and she has been on top form ever since (fingers crossed) so not all a bed of roses but traveling in Africa never is! Lord & Harris, hope that satisfies your need to know that there is a bit of hardship & suffering?

We have also made a few new friends, A & A from Cape Town and Bini and Peter from Austria, with whom several excellent ‘bush’ meals were shared while consuming significant quantities of beer and wine! I am sure we will ‘bump’ into them again – here’s hoping.

From here it’s into Rwanda, not originally in the plan but as we are so close it has to be done, and then onto Tanzania with the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Zanzibar beckoning. Therefore our next update should hopefully come from the beach as we intend to have another ‘holiday’ once we reach Dar es Salaam, so until then keep smiling & don’t graft too hard! We miss you all so drop us a quick line when get the chance & let us know you are still alive & kicking!!