Trekking to See Amazing Chimps and Gorillas in Uganda

Gorilla trekking had not been something that was on my bucket list. However, as I was browsing the list of available trips for this summer, going back to Africa and seeing animals was definitely something I wanted to do. Of course once I saw the gorilla trekking tour in Uganda, I quickly signed up. 

I must admit when I sign up for these trips, I do a quick look at the itinerary and see if it looks good. I sign up, and then I show up with little memory of the itinerary. There’s something about the surprise of what is going to happen each day that I enjoy! To my surprise this time, not only were we going to see mountain gorillas, but we were also going to do a chimpanzee trek. That ended up being one of the first activities we did.

The chimpanzee trekking happened in Kibale National Park in Uganda. We had an early departure from the hotel as we had to arrive at the park in time for the informational meeting. There are rules one must follow when trekking in the forest to see wild animals. The rules are quite obvious. Don’t get too close to the animals. Remain quiet and wear a mask while in proximity of the chimpanzees. This is to protect them from our germs and diseases.

The other thing they prepared us for was forest elephants. I didn’t know there was such an elephant, but apparently there are, and they can be quite aggressive. This is why two rangers with rifles accompany the group. They don’t hurt the animals, but they use the rifles to scare them away. Fortunately, we did not have any run-ins with forest elephants.  

After about a 45 minute moderate hike on a groomed trail, we started to hear the chimpanzees. The excitement kicked in! As we hustled closer to the sound, chimpanzees and the other trekkers soon surrounded us. Our guide took us quite close to one who was on the ground. Since I was in the front of the group, he nearly pushed me to get closer to the chimp. It was intimidating at first, but I’m a rule follower, so I did what I was told. The chimpanzee quickly decided to walk away, and the guide then told me to follow it. The rule is when the chimpanzee walks, you walk with it. When it stops, you stop. So we followed the chimp down a gravel road until he stopped for some relaxation on a log.

There were quite a few of us trying to get the right angle to get a good photo or video of the chimp. He wasn’t bothered by us at all and just kept doing when he did best, pick his nose and eat it. Yes, we probably spent a good ten to fifteen minutes watching this one chimp sit on a log and intermittently pick his nose and eat it. I found it quite entertaining, but I was also thinking, I came all the way to Uganda to watch a chimpanzee pick its nose?

After some time, he decided to relax, and he posed for us on the log, a la Kate Winslet in Titanic. We then decided to leave him to rest and find some other chimps to observe. Oh, I must stay, the guides are very impressive as they know all of the chimps and their names. 

The chimps were all in the same area of the forest, so we didn’t have to walk far to see more. However, some we could just hear and not see. Some would move quickly and were suddenly gone. Some were climbing up in trees, and others were just hanging around grooming another chimp. After watching the first chimp pick his nose, it was fun to then watch two chimps interact with each other. Like the others they found a log to sit on and just spent a lot of time grooming each other. It doesn’t sound too interesting to watch, but some of the positions they got into, well, it felt like we were intruding on something private!

As we were watching the one pair of chimps, another pair showed up, so now there were four. The other pair were doing the exact same thing, grooming each other. At one point, three of them were sitting together. It definitely made for some great photos.

We had about an hour with the chimps, and when our time ended, our safari jeeps came to pick us up, which kind of took away from the whole experience. Like, why did we hike up here if you could have just dropped us off? Oh well. It still doesn’t take away from the fact that the chimps were amazing. We drove back down to the starting point where they gave each of us a certificate that said we had a successful chimp trek in Uganda. They even wrote our names on them and presented them to us as if we accomplished something amazing! Accomplished? I don’t think so. But amazing, yes!

After a few days and quite a bit of driving through Uganda, we arrived at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park for our gorilla trekking. We arrived at our hotel atop a mountain, and it was absolutely beautiful. The hotel manager told us to make sure to keep the doors closed due to rats. That was a first! Luckily, there were no rat sightings. The only thing to do at the hotel was to enjoy the view, relax, and mentally prepare for gorilla trekking.

This experience would be a first for all of us, and we had been warned that it would be more challenging and possibly longer, a lot longer, than the trek to see the chimps. Rumor had it some people could end up trekking for up to 6 hours to see the gorillas. Members of my group were getting nervous, worried that they wouldn’t be able to handle the trek. However, this is why we were here. The main event of the Uganda trip!

We got up early, ate breakfast, (I had pineapple pancakes which were delicious), received our lunches to take, and loaded up into the safari jeeps for the short drive to the entrance. Similar to our chimpanzee trekking, we had to have a briefing first.

However, before the briefing started, Uganda locals came to sing and dance for us. They have limited opportunities in the mountains and with tourists comes money for tipping! 

After the briefing we were given our guide and the gorilla family we were going to see. Unlike Chimpanzee trekking where you just hike to where the guides think they are, here you trek to see a specific gorilla family. There were eight families in the area we were hiking in. Each family has a tracker that finds them in the morning so that our guide knows exactly where to go. Our family was Busingye, and we were told that it had one silverback, 6 females, 8 babies, and 1 juvenile. We were quite excited about the babies!

After we had our guide and our gorilla family, we got back into the safari jeep to head to the starting place of our trek and meet the porters. The porters were optional, but everyone decided to pay for one to support the Uganda locals. My porter was a very tall and kind woman. I hate to say that I forgot her name. She told me that she only gets the opportunity to be a porter once a month because it is such a popular job. They get $20 for the job! Her regular job is working in the fields as the area was a big agricultural area. Before we started, the porters took our bags and gave us a walking stick.

We started up a dirt road and then got to the forest. We put on our gardening gloves as was recommended because when you’re gorilla trekking, there is no trail. It’s just you and nature. The trek started out slowly as the guide had a machete and was cutting the trail as we went. Having the porters and walking sticks were quite helpful. The porters would do whatever we needed to help us, push us, pull us, etc.

We were maybe 10 minutes into the possible 6 hour trek when we heard something. I looked at my porter, and she confirmed my suspicion, it was the gorillas! Are you kidding? 10 minutes? We were a little disappointed that the hike was so effortless, but the adventure was just beginning.

The porters unfortunately don’t go with us to the gorillas. We handed back the walking sticks and headed towards the gorillas, sans a personal support buddy. The first gorillas we saw were some babies goofing around in a tree! It’s hard to capture in words the excitement we felt watching them. In addition to the excitement, we were also trying to not slip and fall (which I did many times), take photos, not drop our phones, and simply move through the forest when we couldn’t see the ground. It was definitely a challenge, but it was totally worth it!

We slowly followed the gorillas as they ate, played and wandered around the forest. The silverback walked right near us, and at one point it stopped and looked directly towards me. It was a little intimidating, and I tried to avoid eye contact. We were probably within six feet of the gorillas most of the time. If they got closer to us, that was OK, but we weren’t allowed to approach them.  I also got quite close to one of the babies, probably a couple feet, who kept staring at me. The guide said he was interested in my phone! A gorilla brushed up against someone in my group as it was walking by. You’re slowly moving about, trying not to fall, and you look up, and there’s a gorilla.

Each group has one hour to be with the gorillas. When our hour was up, we were all disappointed. No one wanted to leave, except for the gorillas who had all climbed up the trees by that point. We took our last few photos, the silverback posed for me, and then we reluctantly followed our guide to meet back up with our porters for our short walk out of the forest. We were once again presented with certificates! I will definitely be putting this souvenir of Uganda up in my classroom.

We then loaded back up in the jeeps and returned to the hotel. We got back by lunchtime. I ate, showered, and took a long nap. Who knew that gorilla trekking could be so exhausting?! Good thing I had a few days to rest because the next night I left Uganda for Tanzania and would soon be camping in the Serengeti. The adventure never ends. Stay tuned!