admin August 7, 2013

Mountain Gorilla Trekking in Ruhija

My husband and I went gorilla tracking in the Ruhija Sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in early June with Go Gorilla Trekking. Do take a look at my review of the safari company we used for our trip.

This Uganda gorilla safari was a success and we had an amazing time, memorable, and a once in a lifetime experience seeing a family of 16 gorillas with 4 silver back gorillas. There was a baby and a grandfather; previous alpha in the family. Our guides were very good; we literally found the gorillas after a 15 minute hike, making our day less stressful. The hike of course was strenuous, but very fulfilling.

If you plan to go on a primate expedition, I highly recommend using our guide and safari company because he gave us such personal attention and the cost of the safaris on full board was affordable. Our guide was Moses, a local guide with over 8 years of experience.

When you reach the gorilla family you are given one hour to observe them. And yes, the experience is as good as everyone says! We were within about 4 metres of two different silverback gorillas. The group had nine gorillas in total. The forest is quite dense and some of the gorillas, particularly the younger ones, can be hard to see clearly if they don’t feel like coming out into the clearing. The rangers do their best to get a good view for everyone. After getting back to the gate, the rangers presented us all with certificates. Afterwards our driver drove us back across the border (this time the shorter route via Kabale) to Kigali. About a 4-5 hours journey

Overall, booking the trip with Go Gorilla worked out well for us. We were very concerned about transferring all the money up front to a bank account in Uganda months before our trip, but thankfully it all worked out well. The permit was secured for us in advance, and they emailed us a scan of the permit on request before we completed the payment (important to request this). Our driver Moses was fantastic; doing everything he could to make our trip memorable.

I thought we’d see a few gorillas on this trek, but what we ended up with was so much more.

We found our gorillas after about a 2 hour trek. Then we sat down to observe them, take photos, videos and they ended up observing us and then we enjoyed our African packed cuisine.
There were about sixteen gorillas in our group and they ended up in a big circle around us. The silverback did the usual chest beating, we saw a couple mating, there were baby gorillas swinging in the trees and one of the mid-sized gorillas actually came up to me and played around with my leg. Very scary at the time but an experience I will never forget. This was the highlight of our trip for sure, I would definitely recommend it.