NO LIMITS
Pictures: Peter Moss
THE MOUNTAIN GORILL
Peter Moss’s first impressions of Uganda were of a scene that looked just like the fake town of Rock Ridge in Blazing Saddles. Uganda, turned out to be a beguiling country, and Peter was there to see the fabled silverback gorillas in their own backyard.
First impressions Firs
on buildings tha still standing D
Advertisements for Omo line the road from Entebbe Airport on buildings that look far too tired to be still standing. Debby Harry blares out of the ancient 8-track cartridge player in our dodgy old jeep, while we suffer the ignominy of being overtaken by a succession of even dodgier taxi-service push bikes (the taxi bit is a moth-eaten plastic cushion balanced on the rear bumper). Fly-infested carcasses hang from the rafters of distempered roadside shacks. One of them is called ‘Elite Butchery’. The ‘Elite’ bit strains credibility to breaking point.
Adve the ro
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Under blue skies and a warming sun we plunged deep into the heart of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, before hauling ourselves to the mountain’s highest ridge way at around 6,000 feet. Amid much hacking and scything with fearsome-looking machetes we ploughed a path of our own creation, an almost subterranean virgin trail illuminated only by piercing shafts of sunlight that sought a way through the dense undergrowth and overhang, all the while accompanied by hundreds of dancing butterflies of every size and colour. It was exquisite.
At last, up and over the high ridge, we sensed we were close. One of the track- ers pointed to a pile of leaves and shoots which, frankly, looked just like every other pile of leaves and shoots out there in the thicket. These, he assured us, had been trodden just a moment or two ago. He lay his hand on the fallen foliage, and I did, likewise. It was warm to the touch, the surest sign we were there, right amongst the rare, spectacular and distressingly endangered mountain gorillas of Uganda. Did I say distressing? Let’s go with tragic. Barely 600 mountain gorillas remain in the wild, perhaps half of them in Bwindi. And those that have managed to elude the ruthless poachers
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