What Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Really Feels Like

Nobody fully prepares you for gorilla trekking. Not the guidebooks, not the briefing at the park office, not even the other travellers who did it the week before you. You can be told the hike is hard and the encounter is short, and still be completely unprepared for what it's actually like.

The trek itself can take anywhere from one to six hours, straight up and down forested ridges, depending on where the gorillas slept the night before. Rangers track them by broken vegetation and dung, radioing updates back and forth. Then, without much warning, someone lifts a hand and everyone stops.

You get exactly one hour. It's never enough, and it's exactly enough.

Once you're with the family, the hour disappears. A silverback might glance at you and go back to eating. A juvenile might tumble past your feet. Nobody talks much. By the time the rangers call time, most people are somewhere between tears and disbelief.