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Mission Accomplished

IT WAS about half past twelve when we started lunch. Thick cloud once more enveloped us. We had been so lucky with the cloud clearing enough to clearly see the gorillas for a short time.

Then I realised my mission was accomplished. I had come to Africa and achieved all four goals. I had been up the world’s tallest building. I had been on safari in Masai Mara, I had celebrated my fortieth birthday at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, and over the past hour I had seen gorillas in the wild.

Having done everything I had set out to do this trip, I was now quite ready to go home.
Then I realised just how far away from home I was. I was fourteen thousand kilometres away on the other side of the world at the edge of the second largest jungle on the planet in a remote corner of Uganda almost at the border of the Republic of Congo.

As of now I was on my way home, which would involve the climb back down the hill to the lodge, then two days ride in the van back to Kampala, then two and a half days of flying over three flights back home. Home was five days away. It was going to be a long journey.

I looked at Sandra, Hendrick and Hans. They too were elated to have experienced the gorillas. For all of us it was a major milestone.

Wilbur stood up in front of us and did a presentation about the family we had just seen, and about the forest. He said we had been lucky to have seen them so soon. They had actually come out onto the farmland two days ago. The local farmers are not allowed to hunt them though otherwise they will face lengthy jail terms. Killing a gorilla earns as much jail time as killing a human. If a gorilla does damage to a farm property, the government uses some of the money that we pay for the trek to compensate the farmer.

Once the presentation was complete, we started slipping and sliding our way down the hill again. It was a quick descent, only taking about half an hour. Dougie was very helpful in assisting me down. He walked this land as if it were dead flat. Thankfully with him giving me a hand down, I didn’t slip at all and made it down just as quickly as everyone else.

We were almost at the middle of the village when we reached a small flat clearing area that perhaps could have a house built on it. There were a couple of long logs. The guides and porters sat on one log, and the rest of us sat on the other facing them. They looked like part of an army with their dark green camouflage clothing, gumboots, sickles and gun. Fortunately we weren’t attacked by anything, so the gun wasn’t needed. They all wore military hats.

Geoffrey from the gazebo in the rain had arrived and joined us. He was in the process of writing some paperwork, perhaps signing us out. He mentioned that our vans will pick us up from here as there was no point in going all the way back to the gazebo in the forest just to sign out, especially with our accommodation being so close.

After ten minutes of resting and of Geoffrey finishing his paperwork, he handed some envelopes over to Wilbur to begin the graduation ceremony. Sebastiaan got the first certificate, followed by Hendrick. Then the others, then I got one, and finally Sandra got hers. They were all sealed up in envelopes so we don’t get them dirty until we get home.

Finally we posed with the guides. I posed next to Wilbur and he generously let me hold his super sharp sickle.

We walked down the steep dirt road to the village about a hundred metres away. There our van was waiting along with about twenty villagers, all of whom we had seen yesterday. The little boy who kept saying ‘hello’ at the top of his voice was definitely there. It seemed they didn’t have anything better to do but to greet visitors to their village.

We jumped in the van and Jeremiah took us for an easy ride down the rough road to the ecolodge where we relaxed for the rest of the day before starting the long journey home towards our respective countries early the next morning.

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