'Silver beard' visits Silverbacks (28-31 October)

Every days rain made our traveling refreshingly cool but the roads got muddier by the day. A hefty downpour welcomed us to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Buhoma Wilderness Camp, but after all this is the rain forest!! – up to 2400mm per annum.

Our first gorilla trek was a one hour hike up through villages to the edge of the forest.

Here we saw the Habinyanja family, a group of 23 individuals. Taking photos was easy as not too much forest was obstructing the views.

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On the way back someone let the pig out in the dense undergrowth – which gave everyone a scare.

The second Gorilla trekking became a three hour uphill slog. When most of our fellow trekkers wanted to give this extreme sport a miss, the gorillas presented themselves in a dense section of the rainforest.

It was the first group that was habituated 12 years ago in Uganda, – the Mubare group - one 36 year old silverback with his troop of five.

After the prefixed one hour visiting time we enjoyed a well deserved lunch break and recovering period’Silver beard’ at lunch.

When we started our return, rain showers accompanied us on the two hours downhill slip and slide.

Back at gorilla headquarters everyone got a certificate for their successful completion but the ‘silver beard’ and myself were honoured with an additional verbal masters degree in gorilla trekking!