Visiting mountain gorillas in their natural habitat is one of the things a person must do in their lifetime. It is a unique experience. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is home to 320 of the 700 remaining mountain gorillas in the world. Three family groups are habituated to humans and eight visitors are permitted to spend an hour observing each family each day. Permits must be purchased in advance at the UWA office in Kampala. The tour companies take most of the permits as they become available, so the independent traveller has to act fast and appear in person with $375 US per person. Bills must be dated 2002 or later and older US bills will be rejected.

We stayed at Buhoma Community Rest Camp, a community operated facility with a few bandas and campsites. It is good to see the money going to the local people instead of an upscale commercial operation. Facilities are rudimentary, but well maintained and clean.

Checking in for your gorilla trek is time consuming, so show up early. First you have to go to the booth at the entrance to the park, where a ranger will want to see your permit and passport, will ask whether you have any communicable diseases and will check your name off on a list. You are then directed to the park ranger compound where a more senior ranger will want to see your permit and passport, ask about communicable diseases and check your name off on another master list. Finally there is an orientation meeting where you are instructed about behaviour near gorillas, the possibility of trekking through the jungle an seeing no gorillas and the fact that if the guide determines you have a communicable disease you will be sent home with no gorilla sightings and no refund. You are given a chance to hire a porter for 10,000 Uganda shilling (about $6.30 CAD). This is a wise investment because carrying a pack with your camera, rain jacket, lunch and water in a humid jungle is not pleasant and it is good to provide income to the locals. Several of the ladies in our group found that the porters could help them up steep climbs and across streams in the jungle. One porter even carried a lady who developed a sore knee for about half he distance. These slight looking young porters are incredibly strong and able to run up steep hills carrying a heavy load.

You have to drive from the assembly point to the start of your trek. The other trekkers were with tour groups who had 4x4 vehicles, but we had a little 2 wheel drive Toyota Corolla and were concerned we would not be able to keep up. The ranges offered to let us ride in their 4x4 Land Rover pick-up. There is a bench seat where my wife and daughter could sit beside the driver and I got to sit in the back with the porters, rangers and guides. I got a good close look at the AK47's the rangers carry in the jungle. The young people in the back of the truck had a good time as we drove to the start of our trek. I could not understand much of the African language they were speaking, but there seemed to be some good natured teasing of a cute female porter involving the word Impenetrable from the park name.

We finally arrived at the start of our trek. Gorillas move through the jungle as they feed so it is not possible to tell in advance how far the trek will be. One of the groups had to walk 35 minutes to see their gorillas and the other 45 minutes. Our gorillas had moved during the night so it was a 3 1/2 hour hike before we caught up with them. This started with about a kilometer through some very steep farm land before we got to the jungle, and then up and down jungle covered hills and across several streams. As you move through the jungle, a guide stays at the head of the group and porters are assigned to watch the back for stragglers. Rangers armed with AK47 assault rifles move ahead, to the flanks and to the rear of the group. These rangers seem to do most of the work of locating the gorillas and finding a good place to stop, remove packs and get cameras ready before approaching.

We finally caught up with our gorilla family and spent an hour observing and photographing them from close distances. This is an unforgettable experience.

The guides decided it would be shorter to change the pick up point and take a different route out of the jungle. They radioed the trucks when they got out of the jungle to open farm land where there was radio reception.