A trek of all treks

    I felt a little smug eating dinner that night since I already had my first gorilla trek under my belt.  I also had my insider information from the Dutch lady that morning that it would be an easy short hike, since hers had only been about 10 minutes into the forest.  Here in Bwindi is where she had trekked.  So I set off in serene confidence that this would be an easy day.  Ha!  What a moron!  Wouldn't you think by now I'd realize that wild animals do not consistently appear on cue at an appointed time and place each day?  What a moron!
     The drive into the Bwindi 
Impenetrable Forest  was short and
uneventful.  Even the road was
cushy by the standards we'd 
become used to.  There was no
doubting that this--finally--
was true African JUNGLE, the
real thing!  
     The park's trek-embarking spot
was a little fancier than at Mgahinga, and there were more people there waiting to go trekking.  I'd say about 30.  They told us they
would be taking out three distinct groups of trekkers to three distinct groups of gorillas.  "My" group had, I believe, 8 people.  All of us were distinctly on the uncomfortable side of middle-aged, except for one young American woman who was accompanying her mom.  While we were waiting, the gentleman sitting next to me said "Do you mind telling me what HAPPENED in your country a year ago?"  I was comforted by his sympathy but couldn't come up with an intelligent response, because, honestly, I DON'T know what the hell happened with that election.  I found that my new friend Gidon was an Israeli.  His English was so good, I would never have guessed that was where he was from, but his wife and the couple they were with did not speak English very well.
     I was the experienced one of the group with my one trek behind me, so of course I had to give them all advice.  They were expecting to go without porters, and I told them the ethical, economical, and conservation  reasons for hiring porters, because they were not convinced they needed porters physically.
     They were, actually, a few years older than me, and one of them was quite disabled.  I am VERY pleased to inform you that yes, they accepted my arguments and each hired their own porter, as did I.

We set off with our guide, and it didn't take long for me to realize that this was not going to be any easy walk.  From the beginning, my porter was both tugging me up steep inclines and holding me back from falling down even steeper declines.  The forest was breathtakingly beautiful, and I took many photos (sometimes for an excuse to stop), but none really do it justice.  You get no sense of how mountainous the terrain is, and it's green on green on green--no contrast to set it off.  

     We kept walking.  The information from the walkie-talkies didn't sound good.
      We all became drenched in sweat and mud.  We'd all fallen a couple of times, and sometimes we had to scoot on our butts and crawl on our knees.  Our porters faithfully and zealously pulled and tugged at us.  We all felt very humble and grateful to them.  I kept thinking:  "We're going to have to go BACK all this way!  Can I make it?"   We were told the gorillas were still moving, and so we kept walking.
     Surprisingly, we saw no mosquitoes or any other bugs.  Some of the trekkers had sprayed themselves with lots of spray, but I used none and didn't need it.











Up and down, up and down.  We kept going.  I didn't wear a watch, but I could tell we'd been walking more than two hours and still we had no word of imminent gorillas.  I began to feel philosophical--that I had had great luck the day before and got to see several gorillas.  Maybe today I would have to be content with the fabulous jungle.

 Gidon [and yes, by the way, I AM spelling his name right, even though it is pronounced "Gideon."  He said some one had probably messed up on his birth certificate.]  found a big worm.  I mean a 
REALLY big worm.  Our guide told us it was a giant earthworm.  The "giant" part was pretty obvious.
      Eventually our guide's walkie-talkie did buzz with news of gorillas still quite a distance ahead.  Up to this point we had been on something of a trail, but now we turned left, and the guides got out their MACHETES and started whacking the brush to get us through--just like in the movies.  Occasionally we saw sign of where mountain elephants had dug up trees.  We were warned they could be dangerous and that one of our guides might have to shoot his rifle to scare them off..  When they called this place the Impenetrable Forest, they weren't kidding!  We went down the steepest hill yet.  I literally felt like I was going to fall off the mountain.  When we got down to the bottom, there was a pretty good-sized creek to cross.  We actually carried stones to make a little foot bridge to get across.  We scrambled across the creek, up a small thickly wooded incline, and came to . . . . . . .  a ROAD!  A good,
well-travelled road!!!  Turns out we could have driven to our destination, but then, who at the beginning could have known that this is where the gorillas would lead us?