Travel: Uganda

Sunday Ndayakunze was only a boy when he first heard about the creatures that lived in the jungle. When his grandfather went exploring, he would catch glimpses of elusive jet-black shadows peering out of the dense rainforest canopy, their red-eyes shining beyond the sprawling vines and buffers of rugged vegetation. Sometimes, after dark, when he had returned to his village, he could hear the creatures beating their chests and whooping into the night. Little did his grandfather know at the time that his back garden would soon be home to one of the world’s last remaining populations of wild mountain gorillas.

That was 30 years ago, and now Sunday is one of the chief park rangers at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest national park, in western Uganda. “When my grandfather told me stories about the gorillas, their numbers were already dwindling,” he says. “I was only a boy but I knew they were in danger and wanted to do anything to help save them for the next generation.”

I have come to Uganda to track these very same gorillas, and with Sunday leading the way I couldn’t have a more experienced guide. For nearly 20 years he has been tracking them, and has only failed to find them twice. But gorilla-tracking isn’t a regular stroll in the park – it can take up to ten hours to find the elusive animals in the dense undergrowth. Precipitous verges are climbed, rivers are crossed and a rusty machete, for hacking a path through the thick, thorny rainforest, is your best friend.

Our day begins at 7am with a rose-pink sun peeping up from behind the hills and rainforest that form a natural boundary between the mud huts and banana plantations of Bwindi village and the park’s sheer slopes. Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland, which charts the rise and fall of the country’s tyrannical former president Idi Amin, describes these plantations that dot the countryside as reminders of “the gleaming roofs of housing schemes in Edinburgh”. He must have been drunk.

Looking out from the veranda of my canopy-level cottage at Wild Frontiers’ luxury Buhoma Lodge, I can see bottle-green treetops rattle with birdlife and red-tailed monkeys pounce from creeper to vine. Morningside, let alone Muirhouse, couldn’t be further from my mind.

The spell continues to hold as I join an eight-strong group at Uganda Wildlife Authority’s headquarters, there to learn more about the park’s gigantic primates from Sunday and fellow guide Zipora Kabugho. We are required to be in good health, dress in khaki-green and keep our distance at all times. “If a gorilla charges at you, whatever you do, do not run,” says Zipora. “Stay calm, crouch down and be quiet – remember they are wild and can be incredibly dangerous. Trust me,” she adds, “you wouldn’t stand a chance against an angry silverback.”

She has a point. To help preserve the gorillas, interaction with humans is minimised and visitor groups limited to one hour. Having similar DNA to humans makes them highly susceptible to illness and disease, and even a common cold could wipe out an entire family. Which begs the question, why allow it? “Having 300 of them here pays dividends,” says Sunday. “Without tourists, local farmers would encroach into the park’s boundaries and their habitats would be in even greater danger.” Fortunately, thanks to government measures that see only 72 permits (costing up to $500 in high season) issued daily, the battle has subsided and the number of gorillas in the wild is slowly rising for the first time in decades. Their habitat, for now, is also secured.

As we leave the park HQ, ahead is a canopy of green that stretches 300km to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, plagued by guerrilla warfare. Vast, almost theatrical swathes of vines, branches and bushes soon surround us as we penetrate deep into the rainforest. The smell of tropical vegetation is overwhelming. At times, according to Sunday, so are the mounds of gorilla droppings.

After an hour, there is a violent shake in the canopy above my head. There is a fluster, a bang and a clatter, a branch snaps clean off and a dark shape comes plummeting into a clearing in front of us. We have been spared the slow sweat of time and, within striking distance, can see a wild gorilla. My adrenalin levels rocket and my glasses fog over.

We retreat behind a clutch of trees and then, one by one, a band of gorillas lumbers out of the undergrowth to rest and feed. There are ten in total. Their broad shoulders look menacing but their eyes seem to show wariness and compassion towards us. They are incredibly shy.

It is a humbling moment, almost primeval in a way, to see them up close in the comfort zone of their own VIP jungle lounge. Kibande plays with her firstborn; Ruterana climbs effortlessly, with an agility that would shame Tarzan; and Nyamunwa nurses an unknown wound. Momentarily, we are in the midst of playtime for gorillas, thousands of miles from the nearest zoo.

Then, as we catch our breath, an enormous shape crashes through the trees. It is the silverback we had been warned about. He marches into the clearing, towering over us – he is colossal. Nearly twice the size of the females, this male is Mwirima, thought to be the world’s largest silverback. And standing within seven metres of him, I am sensing his intuitive glare and my stomach flips 180 degrees.

“Just don’t move,” whispers Zipora reassuringly. “He won’t charge us.” Then, seeing us from the corner of his eye, Mwirima pauses, shakes his neck in defiance and turns back into the jungle.

Then they are gone, leaving behind muddy prints the size of baseball mitts, battered trees with broken limbs and chewed pieces of bark and bamboo – the sign of very hungry gorillas. Despite their size, they have vanished just seconds later.

Cowering in front of an approaching gorilla isn’t something I think I could ever get used to.

Mike MacEacheran travelled on a six-day gorilla safari with Excursionist, a new online collection of exclusive luxury travel experiences (020 7993 2162, www.excursionist.com), and its Ugandan partner Wild Frontiers (00 27 (0) 72 927 7529, www.wildfrontiers.com). British Airways (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com) flies from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Entebbe, via London. For further information on Uganda’s mountain gorillas, visit www.friendagorilla.org.