Chris and Henry travel to Gorilla country

We left the Boma Guesthouse early this morning for a quick flight in a small plane to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.  The staff at the Boma Guesthouse is top-notch and the food is fine if you don't mind the liberal and, dare I say, inappropriate usage of Thousand Island dressing but the best thing is the resident dog.  I'll snap a picture on our return.

The aforementioned small plane

On the drive to the lodge, we learned how Uganda has embraced the gorillas for the value they can bring to the country. Many of the guides on the gorilla treks are reformed poachers and 20% of the money from the trekking fees is given directly to the people of the neighboring community for schools, water, hospitals, etc.   It has been hard to get information because, despite Ugandans learning English in school, they are very low talkers.  We have to really focus to understand them.  The masks don't help. 

In this picture, you can see exactly where the national park forest ends and where the farming starts.  Now that the Gorillas are protected, they are starting to multiple and Uganda is starting to buy some of the farm land back to enlarge the size of the national park.

We took a tour of the Batwa Empowerment village which was created for the Batwa in the 1990s after they were relocated from the forest. The Batwa pygmies had lived in the forest but because they came into direct conflict with the gorillas they were relocated to the area right outside of the forest.  The goal of the village is to preserve their culture.  The tour started off fine but became uncomfortable when they became overly pushy about seeking donations.  

We are staying at the Gorilla Sanctuary Lodge inside of the national park.  We became alarmed at struggling to climb the several flights of stairs to the lodge until they described that the lodge is at 5000 feet.  The hike to the Batwa village helped us get accustomed to the elevation so we feel more comfortable about our gorilla trek tomorrow. 

See the video of our "tent" at the lodge

Tomorrow is the big day. After all of this travel, we finally will see the gorillas in their natural habitat.