Gorrilla!!!!

Special the silverback

With 14 happy concubines, I say he's entitled to his name.

You may think she's just spotted Phil giving her the eye, but she's just yawning.

Close enough for you?

MMmmmmm! Bambooooo!

This is the scene just after special left when all the group followed.

Today, we were to do one of the activities which I'd really been looking forward to - trekking the mountain gorillas. We'd chosen Rwanda to do this as trekking them against the back drop of the volcanoes was supposed to be the best way to see them. It really really was.

We again were accompanied by Kelly and Matt and whilst Kelly shared my bouncy level of excitement Matt equalled Phil's calm anticipation!

There are 350 mountain gorrillas in the Virunga volcanoes and the same number in Bwindi Imprenatable Rainforest in Uganda. 700 in total on this planet explains why they are an endangered species. There are a number of groups which have been habituated to human contact.Only 32 people can visit the gorillas a day in groups of 8 and you can only spend 1 hour with them.

We were allocated group 13. This was the second largest group with 22 members including 1 silverback, 4 mothers for him to please and lots of children.

Our group were resting in the forest and that's where we trekked to find them. They are located by trekkers who go out at the crack of dawn to let the guides know where to find them. We were told that we would keep 8 metres between us and the gorillas.Given that it's rainy reason the forest was Muddy. The kind of mud that you can sink into and you have to pull your foot out of. We walked through the muddy forest, pushing through trees and plants for about half an hour before we started to climb. The climb took us through rain forest, over a crater and gave us great views over the low lands. So, even before we got to the gorillas the trek had been ace.

Kelly and I were first in the group and had to use great self control from overtaking the guide and leaping up the hill to the gorillas. We frowned on anyone who stopped the progress of the ascent with a question!

We eventually got to the trekkers where we had to leave our bags and walk slowly to the gorillas.

Our first sighting of them was in a clearing surrounded by trees. Straight in front of us about 3 metres away the silverback was having a sleep with two babies crawling and playing around and over him. The others were nesting in the trees.

For the first 10 minutes our attention was taken by the playing babies who were rolling around, chasing each other and beating their chests in play. They sometimes looked like they would come right over to us but the guides made a kind of grunting noise to put them off and they backed off. The silverback slept on.Eventually one of the trekkers hacked away at a branch so that we could wander past and around the silver back. We were about 2 m away again and it was clear the 8 m rule would not apply!

As we walked around him he started to wake. He then showed very human qualities of waking up fairly groggy, picking his nose, having a scratch and looking a bit troubled to be awake (well this is phil's usual routine anyway).

The silver back called Special made grunting noises which the guides imitated. He didn't seem fussed about us been there and sat still for a while whilst he woke up. As Special was awake all the other gorillas started to wake up. The group turned from being peacefully asleep to moving around, playing and chatting to each other.

The silverback sat back and watched as the kids played around him, his women came and sat next to him and the others had a scratch or bit of each other. At one point one of the mothers decided she wanted her baby which was playing around Special and started calling to him whilst climbing a tree. On hearing his mum's call the baby started making baby mewing noises whilst climbing up the tree to her. Seemed like the mum had purposefully set herself up the tree for her babe to learn how to make it up there.

Suddenly Special decided he was awake and wanted a bit of brekkie so he got up and turned round to walk back into the bamboo forest. Like clicking his fingers his group started to follow him, jumping down from their nests, swinging from branches, causing mass tree destruction as they went (once they were done you could not tell that there had been a clearing there just a few moments before.)

So we returned very happy. We had been very lucky. We saw them sleeping and playing in a clearing where there was enough light to take pictures. We saw the control the silverback had over his group, we saw 19 of the 22 group, we saw all the babies including the 4 day old, we saw and heard them fighting over bamboo and having their breakfast. On top of that it didn't rain at all which was unusual.

A brilliantly Awesome experience!!!

We then started to trek after the gorillas. As we followed them we heard them fighting over bamboo (the noises were very loud and fraught), laughing and playing. They didn't follow in a nice neat order which meant that whilst we followed them some were in the bushes within a hand's reach away from us eating their bamboo or climbing trees. It was at this point that we were lucky enough to see a mum with her 4 day old baby nestling into her - extremely cute.

We trekked with them for about 30 mins and we got great views of them coming in and out of the bamboo, eating and playing. In the last 5 mins in particular Special seemed to be posing for us as his final curtain call. At the end of the hour they all turned round and disappeared into the bamboo as though they had suddenly had enough of us