Nkuringo Gorillas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PToXWq9FJr0

Following a flight from Entebbe to Kisorro in a toy airplane… two hip, young in their 20’s pilots and just the Brighams, we enjoyed a rough (worst roads I have ever experienced) two hour drive in a Toyota sedan through incredibly lush, hilly, steep terrain to the gorilla camp. Crops cut into the hillsides… at such an angle if you lost your step… you would roll all the way down.

The following morning we greeted our gorilla guide and two guards (with their trusty AK47s), three folks from Belgium and a couple traveling the world for a year, and headed out on a two hour steep hike downward to find the gorillas. The guns are to ‘protect us if the gorillas charge’, although I was unsure, because the gorillas are worth $500/day individual permits… if the instructions were actually to shoot the tourists and protect the animals in that scenario.

As we huffed and puffed up and down the steep hillsides searching, sweating through our clothes and chugging water, the local women in flip flops and with sacks of potatoes on their heads would gracefully pass us on the trail.

Success!! The male gorillas were huge (hands as large a my head) and the youngsters… very playful, rolling around wrestling in the brush.

So, I asked one of the guides back at camp ‘so, how are sales?’

‘We have not had many guests since Ebola came through here last year; we hope it gets better.’

Was not prepared for that news…

We learned the ‘Ebola handshake’ at that point, which is a fist bump.

Harry