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Gazebo in the Jungle

IT WAS pitch black when I woke up at 5:00 AM. Initially I didn’t know what had woken me up. The generator would not have yet kicked in, and it was still night outside.

Then I heard the peel of thunder, and light rain falling on the roof of the tent.

I turned over to go back to sleep. This sounded like a good indoors day. Then I realised this was the day we were going gorilla trekking.

More peels of thunder followed, each sounding closer than the last. I was still in Kilimanjaro mode even though it was now a full week since I had come off the mountain. Here I was thinking to myself I just couldn’t face endless hours of hiking in rain in the most difficult terrain all trip. I had especially saved some energy since coming off the mountain for this trek. Although this walk will be a lot shorter – a few hours, I knew it would take me into some seriously rough terrain. Having seen the terrain over the past two days, I knew this would be as rough as the terrain I did some trekking and track building at the top of the South Island of New Zealand in my latter teenage years. Although the altitude wasn’t going to be an issue here, I knew from experience that battling the rough terrain was going to be the most challenging trek this trip. I was leaving the hardest until last.

The claps of thunder were getting closer and I could now see flashes of lightning outside. The rain was falling heavier, beating down on the corrugated iron roofing above my tent. This will guarantee a very muddy trek in the steep terrain.

The rain continued falling heavily and some of the thunder was now very close, indicating ground strikes. My alarm went off, and out of habit I pressed the snooze button and rolled over again. I may as well get up, but simply didn’t have the motivation to do so. Will it continue raining like this all day, or is this similar to an Australian thunderstorm which only lasts an hour or two before coming out fine again?

The alarm went off again. 6:00. Breakfast was in just half an hour’s time, so I had to get up. I noticed the rain had started easing, but the thunder was still very loud and close. I really wasn’t looking forward to the trek today. Seeing the gorillas in the wild will be the experience of a life time, but that would be clouded by the process of trekking through the mud and rain over very difficult terrain just to get there, then of course we’d have to trek back out again. Trekking out normally meant climbing steeply downhill, the worst thing imaginable in my view.

I was very quiet over breakfast. A couple of us weren’t hungry at all. I ordered scrambled eggs and toast assuming it would be a piece of toast with scrambled eggs on it. They seemed to take a long time in the kitchen this morning, but it was welcome when my scrambled eggs did finally make an appearance. Then Emily came out again with another plate containing two pieces of toast. One was of normal thickness, and the other was huge – about four centimetres thick. I really wasn’t at all hungry, so I put the plate in the middle of the table and said anyone can help themselves to it if they want to.

The rain was still falling when we left the lodge in our small van. Everyone was well equipped for trekking, and ready to go. On our way out of the hotel, Travis told us to take a lunch box each from the reception of the dining room. They had made lunch for us. That was one rather large thing to add to my daypack, so I packed it towards the bottom.

Jeremiah took our group with Travis back along the road we had followed the day before yesterday. The road had been precarious in the dryness of the other day, but it was even more treacherous with the rain. Brown opaque water was running down the hill onto the road turning it into a bit of a quagmire. Fortunately though no slips had come down to break our only access.

We wound around the road for a long time. The tops of the almost black ridges were hidden in cloud. The gullies were all shrouded in dark mist highlighting the impenetrable forest. It truly was a miserable spectacle here. Somewhere high in the hills above us were the gorillas we were meeting today.

We turned off the main road onto a steep very narrow driveway. I thought this would go for ten, twenty or a hundred metres at the most. Instead it went on and on for several kilometres. We were sliding around over the extremely rough road surface precariously close to the edge.

We passed another eco lodge that charges $500 per night. It didn’t look as eco as our lodge, nor did it have the nearby village to interact with, but it was obviously a lot closer to the gorilla headquarters. Where's the adventure in that?

Finally we reached a small car park at a small flat area. We stopped here as the rest of the driveway followed a very steep slippery road uphill. Any vehicles attempting it in this weather would be putting our lives in danger. We put on our ponchos and started walking up the steep muddy road through the forest. After five minutes the road turned around in a hairpin bend. It continued steeply rising through the forest, but we saw a gazebo ahead of us.

About twenty metres short of the gazebo, there were a group of porters standing in the rain all wearing camouflage raincoats. No doubt they were waiting for us to register and request their services.

We entered the gazebo. The thick cloud, rain, and forest made the inside of the gazebo very dark. We all took a seat before a couple of other groups arrived at the gazebo.

There was a large desk positioned to the left of the main entrance. A uniformed man sat at the desk processing some paperwork. We filled in our details in a book similar to the sign in books used on Mount Kilimanjaro. Travis suddenly realized that he should have told us to bring our passports. I didn’t have mine, so I ended up making up my passport number – I only remembered the first three digits, so made up the rest.

Fortunately the guy at the desk didn’t seem to worry about that. The whole signing in process in the dark gazebo took quite a long time, but eventually we were all signed in. Then another man stood in front of the desk and introduced himself.

“I’m Geoffrey,” he said. He mentioned some of the rules with groups staying together. He went through an old school safety briefing. Anyone with any transmittable diseases like tuberculosis or similar would not be allowed up. Gorillas share 98% of DNA in common with humans. Even chimpanzees are only 96%. Because gorillas are so similar to humans biologically, they are very susceptible to diseases spread by humans. No one declared, so he assumed that everyone present was healthy.

He continued mentioning there are six gorilla families here in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Five of these are for tourism and the other one for research. There were a total of seven hundred and fifty live gorillas. We were going to be divided into three groups each tracking one gorilla family.

He discussed issues such as if a group doesn’t find gorillas, they will be refunded half the $500 park entrance fee. People who are unfit and don’t want to continue will be provided with two guides to help them out, but they won’t get any refund. He suggested these people join a gym and come back in a year or two. He mentioned anyone who doesn’t want to do the walking and tracking, they can pay around $300 depending on distance, and when gorillas are found, they can utilize the local quick response rescue team to take them up there by helicopter, and then take them down again after the hour of viewing. That idea was very tempting, but what is a gorilla trek without the slog that comes with it? I have travelled half way around the world to experience this.

He mentioned that otherwise we have to stick together as a group. There were many dangerous animals out there in the forest, and we are susceptible to attack. Therefore one of the assistant guides will be carrying a semi-automatic AK47 gun. Although they will do whatever they can to scare any predators away, they will shoot them if they have to in order to protect us.

Then he mentioned someone had a lazy leg. We didn’t know what he was talking about until he pointed to my walking polé. He then showed us some really nice walking poles which he called lazy legs, and offered to sell one to us and to take away. I can’t imagine getting one of these onto the plane back to Australia through. He said if you didn’t want to buy a lazy leg, then we can borrow one at the start of the trek. The borrowed ones obviously won’t be as nice as his ones for sale though.

I liked the term “lazy leg”, so will refer to my walking pole as my lazy leg from now on.

He then asked us to look at our tickets and join the group outside. There were three signs outside, so I went to the Mishaya group. This included the four of us from my tour, a Dutch lady and two young guys from Sydney. Here we met our guides.

The main guide was Wilbur – a name easy for me to remember as my chief guide on the Inca Trail was also named Wilbur. The assistant guide with the shotgun was Charlie. Wilbur was wearing a large grey jacket and carrying a small sickle. He asked us if anyone wants a porter. Only Sandra and I requested porters. Two young men approached, and I introduced myself to my porter. He introduced himself as Dougie and he seemed to be a really nice natured bloke. Like most of the locals, he had a very athletic physique so he will be fine to carry my large camera during the tough part of the trek if needed.

Once the meeting and greeting was done, we walked back down to the vans. Our group jumped back into our van with Jeremiah, our porters and also with Charlie, so it was rather crowded. We set off back along the rough road to our starting point.

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