The thing left to do in Uganda was to see the gorillas. The thing I was told about when I first
firstly first got to Uganda and the thing I was told I could not leave before
doing.
I know about the gorillas.
I watched Gorillas In the Mist. I
wanted to be Dian Fossey. The Gorilla
exhibit was my favorite part of the Bronx Zoo.
So I gathered up my partner in travel, Val, from Tanzania, joined
together with 4 other women friends and went to the Impenetrable Forest
bordering the Congo to see them.
There are only around 700 gorillas remaining in the world
and they are only found in two places: in the Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda, Uganda and
the Congo, and in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda.
Our car tilted on the
large cavern that separated us and the forest.
We carried our packs and walked, with armed guides, down the almost
vertical wall into the canyon. My legs
shook and I fell an obscene number of times.
And then there, just
ahead in the clearing, just casually loping along was a family of gorillas. My breath caught and I started to cry. But quickly pulled my shit together to take
the following pictures. The rest of the
journey we whispered to ecstatically to each other, thrilled and terrified that
they might charge us. There was a 1 year
old baby and an infant in the family and 2 silverbacks. Valerie and I gripped each other as one of
the gorillas brushed my leg. Please see
video for proof.
Amazing!! Love it!
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