My First Ever Gorilla Trekking Experience! What I had never imagined or expected in life!

Even after selling the gorilla trekking experience to guests, I had never trekked gorillas personally. This was due to a number of factors; One, having a poor domestic tourism consumption behavior. Yes, as Ugandans in a whole, we’re either ignorant or lazy at consuming and appreciating our own nature.
The fact that Uganda was a home to the endangered Apes didn’t trigger the urge to go see these big primates even when tourists would travel miles and miles to come have this lifetime experience
Two, usually I’m driven by company and since I’ve already stated our behavior I felt like I needed company to get the experience. At a point I considered my children, but they were underage to participate in the trekking.
The few friends I interested in trekking thought it was costly and not a Ugandan thing to per take even when I had clearly told them that as a Ugandan/East African, the government had subsidized the permit for us to enjoy our own gifted nature _ ignorance

So, one day I decided that I would be tracking gorillas with or without any support. But luckily enough I got a client who wanted to hike Mountain Rwenzori and also track gorillas. He was alone and I requested to join him for tracking. Of course, he needed company like I did earlier on and that’s how we set off for Bwindi impenetrable National Park in western Uganda

Since he was coming off the mountain, we arrived our guest lodge a bit late in the night and we had to trek early morning. We checked in and was eager to witness the unexpected

Early morning after breakfast we were driven to the headquarters of the Uganda Wildlife Authority for briefing. And this was where our journey would begin. Excited, we joined the welcoming community (The batwa community) which sung songs of motivation, cheering us all the way to what we should expect.
Being a mountain climber, when you are presented any sort of trekking, you automatically think of the distance you want to cover, the endurance you are going to achieve that day, you’re wondering what elevation you will achieve and you are ready to start your 2-3 pedometers to track your trekking activity.
In fact, in the beginning, I looked forward to climbing a hill or a mountain since I hadn’t done it in a long time than the gorillas.

After briefing, we were flagged off by the Authorities, and we were given guides to take us to the trail. This time around I wasn’t a guide but a guest with another guest. Excited we started our journey.
Now trekking/hiking may take longer than expected so you are advised to wear very comfortable shoes an extra size advisable, carry packed lunch (this is always provided at the hotel in the morning), enough hydration in a hydration bag, some glucose and a wind breaker/Rain jacket or hat to protect you from any unexpected weather condition. And the most important requirement one shouldn’t forget is a MASK. Yes, we need to protect our endangered animals from diseases from humans. We share almost 95-98% DNA with these Apes so we can easily transmit diseases to them and them to us!