Gorilla tracking in Uganda

We woke up so early in the morning, grabbed a packed breakfast from the lobby of the hotel and began driving. We arrived to "Bwindi" national park in Uganda and after arranging our backpacks, having a briefing and trying to understand how big this experience is going to be, we were separated into a few groups and finally got to the moment we were waiting for - we entered the jungle!

Walking in a real wild jungle was an amazing experience as it is, with every step in the bushy jungle we got deeper and deeper and discovered more and more views, smells and noises - Mongos monkeys jumping on the trees, playing and running around us, different insects buzzing in the air or trying to climb on us and many types of birds calling and flying above us. We had a guide who cut the bushes with a machete, and with him we started tracking after gorilla's calls, footprints or any other sign that could tell us where to find those majestic creatures. An hour went by, another one and another one.

Our bodies were covered with lairs of sweat mixed with dirt and dust, my pants had holes from all the thorns that I stumbled in and every once in a while we had to stop to get fire ants off our bodies- Still we didn’t give up! We came here to see gorillas and we were determinate to keep going. The hours past, our legs started to hurt from the long difficult walk in the jungle but finally our guide got a call from another ranger- they located the gorillas! If you can imagine the excitement we had you can probably double it and still you wouldn’t be close to how excited we were. After spending around 4 hours in the jungle we pushed our legs to the limit, got all of our cameras ready and started to hurry before they will change location and then it happened! Finally! In a sunny part of the jungle we heard them, slowly slowly we started getting close and there were they. A beautiful female gorilla was hiding in the bushes, looking at us with her human like eyes, and then she went away and we continued to follow her and found ourselves in the middle of a gorilla's family with almost 20 members

The young gorillas were playing with each other just like children, they were play fighting and rolling in the leaves in such a humanly way and we continued to watch them, so fascinated and then suddenly we saw him. With all of his glory the majestic Silverback respected us with his presence and we even got to see him banging on his chest like a drum- warning us not to get to close.

For the one who don't know the silver back is an older male gorilla, that his back turned gray from age and is usually the leader of the pack

The Silverback

The silverback banging on his chest

At this point everything felt absolutely like in a dream or at least a scene from a Tarzan movie - running in the middle of a wild jungle with completely wild and free gorillas with no cages or bars to come in between us, just us visiting them in their natural environment. We watched the family so close and took many amazing pictures trying to capture the beauty of those mesmerizing creatures and probably got a bit too close because the leader male, the silver back came charging towards us with a big growl and broke a huge tree over us!

A normal person probably would have been scared but all we were is 100% amazed. Amazed by his strength and amazed by his glory but we got his massage - we need to stay a bit away.

An hour past and we were about to leave, I was sitting on the ground watching a female gorilla enjoying some fresh green leaves when suddenly a curious little cub started to stumble in my way.

He came closer and closer until the point I could easily touch him, but just before this curious little fella could climb on me his protective mama quickly pushed him and took him away- a perfect ending to the perfect adventure!

We started our way back, a bit sad to leave the gorillas and a bit worried about the long difficult walk back ahead of us but completely satisfied, happy, speechless and mostly grateful for this amazing opportunity that was given to us. For more pictures click here or search @Travel_Rotem on instagram.