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Travel Writers: Into the mist By Nicolas Allenbaugh

Location: Uganda, Central Africa

As I continue to walk up the mountain I begin to grow weary. The forest is very dense. Very wet. The heavy rain has just stopped. We are all struggling to move on. No paths, no directions, no maps. Just thick rain forest. Two men in front of us and three behind us. All carrying Russian AK-47’s and machete’s. We were all tense. Nervous. Scared. For one year ago in the same area, 10 tourists on a similar trek were taken hostage by Rwanda rebels. Eight out of the ten never made it out of the jungle alive.

Nobody talked. No sounds. Just the chop of the machete and heavy breathing and footsteps. Suddenly the lead man stopped. We heard them. Their unmistakable sounds. Grunting. Trees rustling. Branches breaking.

We moved slowly, quietly forward. Finally we saw them. The Uganda mountain gorillas. We were lucky today, we came across a family of about 9. There are only about 500 of these creatures left on the planet, due mostly to poachers, their only nemesis. We were near the area where Diane Fosey studied the giant beasts for 13 years until she lost her life to a poacher’s machete.

As we moved around we sat 15 feet away from the head of the group. A 450 pound male silverback. Very careful at this point. We all were told how to act. Head down, no sudden motions, no eye contact. If he attacked, play dead and pray. You see, the locals with the guns were not to protect us from the gorillas, but to protect the gorillas from poachers. To our left we heard some noise, and out of the brush a baby gorilla sat 5 feet away and just curiously stared at us wondering what these creatures were doing in the back yard. Mom let out a grunt and away the baby went to her.

Walking back down the mountain we were all immersed in thought about the experience we just had with an animal who unfortunately will probably not last through the 21st century.

Text & photography © Nicholas Allenbaugh, all rights reserved.