My Camp Had Been Invaded

I read about mountain gorillas in Michael Crichton’s book, Travels. After reading about his experience, I decided that I wanted to go see them myself. I went on this journey in early 2011 and there were only about 785 mountain gorillas in the world, 480 of which resided in East Africa at that time. (Now there are over 1,000 in the world – hooray!) It was difficult to arrange to track them, as Uganda was only issuing 24 permits a day in the area I was visiting. (Overall, Uganda was only offering 56 permits a day throughout the whole country. I’m not sure what they are currently doing in 2024.) However, I was lucky to be able to snag a permit for one day and was assigned to see the Rushegura group, which included 14 gorillas and two silverbacks.

From Kampala, the capital of Uganda, it was an 11-hour, very bumpy car ride to the Bwindi Impenetrable Rainforest. Fortunately, I had a wonderful guide named James who let me pepper him with questions endlessly. We were together for several days as he took me to different places across the country, so we became quite comfortable with each other. James and I had several meaningful conversations about culture, race, class structure, access to malaria medication, and many other things that I’ll blog about in the future.

We arrived at the small camp in the rainforest late in the day. It felt dark because the trees were so tall and so large and leafy. Not much sunlight penetrated the lush foliage. We set off on our trek early the next morning. There were 7 other people in my group, not including a guide and two armed guards. I asked about the purpose of the firearms and they assured me that it was “in case of rogue elephants.” I didn’t question this response and accepted it at face value. Although, looking back, the rainforest didn’t feel like a natural spot for elephants to be in.

From the start of our trek, the ground was muddy and slick. I kept tripping over myself because I was so excited, and the guide had to remind me to try and stay calm. I was also grateful that they gave everyone a walking stick, which prevented me from sliding down muddy embankments several times. I had a daypack with me for water, my passport, some money, and a few other essentials in case we were out for a long time. To track the gorillas, we had to go to where they were last seen the day before. Then we would follow their footprints and their feces until we find them. It could take 3-4 hours, or it could take 11-12 hours. We stayed on the “main path” for about 90 minutes. This part of the path was well worn and clearly marked. Then we veered off and followed a small animal path for about half an hour. The brush was thick and the footing was even tricker. After a short time, we left the animal path and our guide abruptly stopped. He told us to drop everything but our cameras. The armed guards would watch our belongings. We continued our trek. At this point, there was no path. It was just thick bush. Our guide didn’t do any bushwacking because we wanted to keep the environment much like we found it: untouched. At one point, the woman in front of me slowed down and we lost sight of the rest of our group. We had to yell to find each other.

Suddenly, we found ourselves in front of a gorilla in a tree. It was calm and happily eating away.? We had come across the family, and we were able to spend an hour watching them. I saw 10 gorillas and both silverbacks. It was so remarkable. There are no words to describe how magical it was to be out in the open and watching them in their natural environment. And we were so close! At one point, which I captured on video, one of the gorillas walked right up to me. Our guide had given us very clear instructions earlier that morning: don’t look at the gorillas if they approach you. Keep your head down and that is exactly what I did! The time flew by and the hour – the maximum amount of time we could spend there – went impossibly fast. They are enormous animals and yet exceptionally peaceful. They were not threatened by our presence and often stopped eating to stare at us, curiously. I loved every moment of it. We made our way back to camp and I settled into bed with a smile on my face, feeling so fortunate to have such a special experience.

I’m an “odd duck” in that I like to read about the places I’ve been after I’ve been there. I’m better able to see in my mind what the author is describing. When I returned to the States a few weeks later, I read Dangerous Beauty by Marc C. Ross. He writes about his experience in Uganda searching for mountain gorillas – and how his camp was invaded by rebels who had crossed the Congo border a little more than a decade before I had been there. Many of the tourists were robbed – which was a common incident back in those days. But during this situation, people were killed. It was the camp I had been at. Now I understood the real reason why the two gentlemen had firearms. And I’m grateful that I didn’t read the book beforehand because I’m not sure I would have gone.

The lesson here is to know and accept yourself. In my first year of consulting in 2014-2015, I had enough work to keep me busy 4 days a week and still pay the bills. A consistent three-day weekend is what many people crave. It’s what I thought I wanted. But I found out that it didn’t work for me. I’m better focused and more efficient when I’m too busy rather than when I have time on my hands. It was a hard thing to accept about myself. But I found my stride and it all worked out.

Many people want to read where they are going before they get there. Again, that doesn’t work for me. It’s so easy to cave to societal norms and do what people think you should do. But, in both our personal and professional lives, we have to trust ourselves. Only we know what will work best for each of us. So, get to know yourself, and accept and love you for who you are.