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Quite frankly the most exciting and scary, different thing ever.
Woke up at 5am to be collected for 6:30. The drive was long in the back of a truck again lacking seatbelts and infact seats. We drove around mountains for around 2 hours and saw the odd person ploughing and children playing. I wondered if any of them had ever been off the mountain. It was so high and would take weeks to walk and with no access to transport would all they ever see is this mountain. Beautiful as it was, I thought of how much i;d seen in the last 14 days and realised i've probably seen more of the country than they will.
We got pepped around 9am on the gorillas we were going to trek. They are wild and this project was set up by Dian Fossey. The gorillas have seen humans before but they are wild and not tamed. No interaction with gorillas takes place. There are 3 groups of gorillas to be trekked with one group for research. The gorillas are so rare, it is the only group of mountain gorillas to be researched in the world.
We started our hike into the forest and I didn't realise why it was called impenetrable until we entered. It is literally impossible to walk through. The guards carried machetes and hacked through the forest. It took around 4 hours of falling down hills, falling in holes, climbing mud slops and falling everywhere to find the gorillas. By this time I had been attacked by safari ants which bite alot. They particarly like your crotch.
We literally stumbled across the gorillas and as usual I absolutely s*** myself. A giant silverback came charging towards me and a guard. My instinct was to run but the guards wouldn't let me. I was basically being held in one spot whilst this giant animal was coming to attack and hack me to death. Turns out it was a fake charge to exert it's authority. It then turned and sat by me just checking me out. I was fascinated, in shock, petrified, stuck to the spot, shaking but feeling so privileged I had a rare mountain gorilla sitting right next to me (body touching my cargo pants!) and looking me in the eye. It was something I will always remember. The sheer power and size of these animals but the also docile, calm air around them is overwhelming. He then walked off to the rest of his pack and we spent the next 90 following the gorillas and watching them eat, play and groom. It was pretty funny watching the baby gorillas try and climb trees, do so well and fall back down to the bottom. It really made me think about animals in captivity and whether that is really right when these gorillas living wild had all the space in the world and quite frankly you cannot beat this.
The guards were also amazing. Especially one who helped me been as I am wonderfully unfit. He pretty much dragged me round the forest and picked me up out of so many holes I fell in, I lost count. The guards have a relationship with the gorillas. They could name them all and they knew everything about them. They really cared and this tourism provided them a wage. I left a pretty big tip even though it is expensive to trek the gorillas because the job they do for the wage they actually get is unreal. I cannot imagine working 6 days a week, trekking the jungle 4 times as day as they have to trek to find a roundabout location before we arrive in the blazing sun. A privileged job in a way but a 16 hour a day job with the day off still requiring a visit to check the gorillas are safe due to Congo relationships and poaching. That is hard.
They do am amazing job especially in that they managed to drag me around when I was quite genuinely dying most of the time.
When we got back I finally had some time to find some locals. I came here to experience the lifestyle and I am taking any time I can to experience that.
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