Check that. Make it the 500-pound silverback in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. And I’m not sure how the phrase “800-pound gorilla” came to be. They don’t actually get over 600 pounds.
We drove from Entebbe, Uganda to the Burunga lodge. After spending a night there, we drove to the Bwindi Impenetratable Forest. Our group hiked for about a half hour before stopping and waiting. Up ahead in the forest were scouts searching for the gorillas. After another thirty minutes, our guide received a cell phone call telling him where the gorillas were. After hiking about another fifteen minutes, I came around a corner and I was looking right at a mother and baby that were only ten feet away. We donned facemasks (we were required to wear masks to make sure no one transmitted Covid or another disease to the gorillas).
We spent ninety minutes following and observing a family of ten gorillas. At times, I was only five feet from the silverback! One time, a baby ran within a foot of me and then ran through another trekkers legs! For the last fifteen minutes, we watched two babies play on top of the silverback.
Our group consisted of four clients (myself, Kate, Alex and Zak), two porters (carrying day packs for Alex and Zac), two armed guards and a guide. Zak owns a travel company that specializes in safaris in Masai Mara National Park and in bears (in Banff, Canada). His two main passions are bears and gorillas. This was his forty-fourth gorilla trek. He stated that this was one of the fastest treks he’d ever been on in terms of how quickly we got to the gorillas. But he also stated that this was one of the top five treks he had ever been on. He’d never seen a baby run through a client’s legs before and he’d never seen babies play on top of a silverback. Our guide also let us get closer than usual to all the gorillas.
It really felt magical to be that close to these great apes.