Mzungus in the Mist

From Jinja we headed to Lake Bunyoni where we spent the night. Another great campsite with views over the lake and a relaxed atmosphere. My tent buddy, Phillipa (from Scotland) and I have gotten pretty good at putting the tent up and down and already settled into routine like an old married couple with own sides of the tent and all!!

Had a swim in the lake just as a thunder and lightning storm hit which was hysterical and very wet as the rain was bouncing off the water into our faces. Early start the next day to head to Kisoro in the south-western corner of Uganda near the border of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The road was outrageously bad and nobody really enjoyed the 5 hour trip. Nothing much to say about Kisoro, it is a dusty border town and the campsite pretty average (but good hot shower!), however everyone was pretty hyped up as it meant being close to seeing the gorillas. Another early start and we did our border processing and through into DRC. Laughed at the border security – an old tire on the Ugandan side and two bamboo sticks on the DRC side, all aided by a tired looking guard with an ancient gun. Had to walk the no mans land in between.. must say it was the most unique border crossing I’ve ever done!!

As soon as you got into DRC could see that it was much poorer, and funnily enough the Congolese people also looked different, a bit shorter with rounder faces. We crammed into 4WD drive vehicles (9 to a car) and if we thought the roads the previous day were bad, we revised our opinion, as these were potholed beyond belief and we sashayed and side-winded all over the road with complete abandon. While we didn’t feel too safe it was the unfortunate people walking along the road that were really in danger as our driver seemed to completely disregard the fact that they had leapt to safety on the verges… in fact we did actually hit one person with the wing mirror and then we also crashed into a fence post when heading into the national park… not very inspiring!! The worst part was that we had to travel for 3 hours like this… each way… banged my head who knows how many times!! It was definitely a Grade 5 road! Almost forgot that we were in a country with a travel warning out and very fragile peace until we passed 3 UN vehicles, the last of which was carrying a massive gun mounted on the top…

Finally we arrived at Parc National des Virungas and were introduced to our guides and then off up the hill. Voted to go in the medium level group instead of trying to be a mountain goat with the fast and fit among us. In groups of 8 we headed over farmland then into the jungle, where they slashed way through to find the gorilla families. The one our group saw was the biggest with 31 gorillas, including some babies and a giant silverback watching over it all. Got amazingly close and they were very curious and if not for the guides ah-hemming their communication am sure they would have touched us. Quite a humbling experience. Only allowed one hour with them as they are sensitive to human disease and also they don’t like to stress the animals either – the time really flew by and then it was down the jungle path again to the waiting vehicles. Hideous trip back (hit head numerous times again!) and was relieved to get back over the border before dark. Then too late I realized that I had left my Nordic walking poles in the 4WD in the Congo… I was certain that I was going to be singularly responsible for starting the trend of Nordic Walking in the Congo but amazingly I actually got them back as after a huge stuff up two of our group didn’t get to see the gorillas that day and had to go back again the next day, so they rescued them for me.