Friday of last week was our day for tracking the mountain gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in western Uganda. We set out on our hike with a local guide, two armed rangers and several porters to carry our day packs.
The landscape was as lush as any we have ever seen anywhere in the world
One last comical note. As my beard has grown over the last 3 months, my nickname in Africa had progressed from Sean (for Sean Connery) to Santa Claus. When we were out on the gorilla trek, our local Ugandan guide insisted that I send him a picture of the two of us together. In his words "when I see you in heaven, I will know I am with Moses."
Only 840 mountain gorillas remain in the wild along the borders between Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo. The gorillas move among the 3 countries and we were lucky they were not in the Congo last week, as the security situation in the Congo would have prevented us from seeing them.
Only one group goes out to see each gorilla family each day, and you are only allowed to spend 1 hour with the gorillas once you find them. Because they share 98.4% of their DNA with humans, no one who is sick is allowed to go out and We were fortunate to be assigned the largest family - a group of 26, including 2 silverbacks. The photos of the gorillas are great, but don't convey how impressive they really are.
One last comical note. As my beard has grown over the last 3 months, my nickname in Africa had progressed from Sean (for Sean Connery) to Santa Claus. When we were out on the gorilla trek, our local Ugandan guide insisted that I send him a picture of the two of us together. In his words "when I see you in heaven, I will know I am with Moses."
Home 3 weeks from today! Time flies.....
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