Mountain gorilla, story about food

Guide

In places where you can't avoid the need for a guide to wander in search of animals, who is assigned to your trip is essential. You can't control that, and in a big undertaking like tracking mountain gorillas in Uganda, certainly not. Nevertheless, we tried. We indicated our desires to our driver, Wilson - to find a guide for the pack with the cubs, hoping that's where there would be some activity and interesting stories for the photos.
It did work out in the Bwindi area, a fine guide, a cool group of gorillas with cubs, but it was still not enough. Unfortunately, you have no control over who they put in your group anymore. We got an unhealthily obese German woman who was not at all made for tracking in the mountainous forest terrain, often without trails. She was climbing at 10 meters per minute, the porters had to support her, and she stopped frequently. Although it was only a short distance to the gorillas, we didn't reach them until noon, when they were resting in the light of a forest clearing. There was hardly anything going on in the group, the sun was shining brightly, the gorillas were resting peacefully after their meal, with only the cubs frolicking occasionally in the low branches.
The Mucunguzi gorilla group had thirteen members at the time of our visit - one silverback (said to be 25 years old), three adult males, four females, two grown cubs and three baby gorillas. Lots of animals, but no significant displays.
Unless the corpulent person just got in the way of the shot so nice wildlife experience, but all wrong for photography...

Papaya

The most amazing thing about the close proximity of gorillas is that they behave completely naturally in the presence of humans, they communicate with each other, they eat. They completely ignore the prying eye of the nature lover and the cameras.
After the mixed feelings of gorilla watching in Bwindy, we went to see the gorillas at Muhabura Volcano in Mgahinga Gorilla NP.
I remember a silverback male started breaking a thick papaya trunk like a fist with the ease of tearing grass. The flesh of the succulent trunk is such a delicacy to them that it pays to move it to a more comfortable spot and then nibble the snapped trunk in seclusion without bothering other members of the troop.
As I was festooned with cameras, it was physically challenging for me to always be earlier at the spot the silverbacks were likely to go. Plus, at the risk of bumping into another gorilla in the pack. Looking at our guide, I felt he wouldn't mind if I moved away. After all, his benevolence in our photographic endeavors was exactly what David, Martin and I needed. I gave it a try, the gorilla trail through the forest was clearly visible, I wanted to "catch up" with the animals and not just take pictures of bare shiny black butts advancing through the forest in gorilla tracks. Just wait them out with a wide-eyed shotgun in hand in their path.
It says everywhere what is the minimum distance you can approach the gorillas, but I guess no one trains the gorillas how close they can get to us.
Knowing that "supposedly" silverbacks won't attack silverbacks in territory, I tried to take a blind shot with my grey head with my wide-eyed camera. There are currently three silverbacks in the Nyakagezi group of nine, backpacking up the slopes of Muhabura volcano, and they all passed me in one minute, really tightly!
I was sitting in their way, they didn't budge an inch... Impressive animal. I only knew how close they were from my friends photos, I was afraid to look the gorillas in the eye, I could just feel them. Maybe one of the males even touched me, I don't know, I had goosebumps all over my body.
When the gorillas are too close, it is recommended to kneel down for your own safety, bow your head humbly, muted humble grunts, and when the worst happens slowly tear the grass around you without interest, and when the situation is already bad from the close encounter, start eating the grass...
I rank my encounter with gorillas in Uganda as one of the most powerful experiences in the wild, along with my first time photographing a lynx. In both cases, the emotions were so strong that I started shaking and tears flowed...

Under the volcanoes
As I finished reading a book about gorillas in the garden of our accommodation in Kisoro shortly after noon, I realized that this was the same hotel that George B. Shaller (A Year Among Gorillas) and in 1967 Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist). It was only at that moment, after a second morning visit to a group of mountain gorillas, that it hit me that another dream had come true. The emotional moment was further enhanced by the fact that the summit of Mount Sabyinyo, where the German army officer Robert von Beringe discovered the mountain gorillas for the world in 1902, was just visible from the garden.
I didn't miss much and I might not have made it, a few decades ago the last few hundred mountain gorillas were left, now there are perhaps as many as a thousand in the forests around the volcanoes along the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo.
I can't wait to see these magnificent animals in the wild again. I have not yet been to Rwanda or the Congo.

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