IMAGES: GETTY; CHARLOTTE WIGRAM-EVANS; VOLCANOES SAFARIS
UGANDA
my boots in knotted veins, and sinewy vines spill from trees covered in thick, mossy pelts. It’s all-four-limbs work, our hands groping for
branches as we scramble up mudbanks left slick by a morning downpour. Our guide Sylvia, however, is as formidable as the forest, marching ahead with her machete and hacking down anything bold enough to bar her path. “Watch that ant trail,” she calls over her shoulder. “Step on it and you’ll be dancing without music. And look up — there’s L’Hoest’s monkeys in the mahogany.” Torn between Earth and sky, I risk the driver
ants’ wrath and watch as the troop swaggers loose- limbed along a branch, their black-and-white fur frizzy with mist. “We’re close to the gorillas now,” she calls, taking a great swipe at the spiked stem of a giant lobelia. “The trackers are up ahead. We call them the heroes; they’ve been out since dawn to find this family.” This time, there’s no open clearing to lounge in.
The gorillas are buried in undergrowth so thick that when two babies come barrelling out from behind a tree and crash straight into my legs, I’m as startled as they are. Delighted by their discovery, they wobble back over, tiny hands reaching to cling onto me again. “Careful, they’ll have your phone in a minute,”
a tracker named Godfrey says with a laugh as I back away. “That teenager over there stole mine once; it took me hours to find him and when I did, he’d somehow got onto Spotify and was listening to reggae.” Godfrey, I quickly learn, is the joker of the group.
“Who was that, come on own up,” he teases as a fart ripples through the undergrowth. Behind the laughter, though, lies pride: he’s Batwa, intent on turning his ancestral knowledge into purpose. “I used to come to the jungle so often with my father that this job just made sense. Plus, I love the gorillas. Now I spend every day with them, knowing my work helps secure their future.” We spend an hour with the family, a living
tableau unfolding beneath the trees. Babies wriggle in their mothers’ arms, the phone-thieving teenager earns a cuff from his father after snatching at some eucalyptus, and low rumbles pass between them, a constant chorus of domestic chatter rolling through the jungle. “They’re very talkative today,” Sylvia grins. “The silverback is making sure they’re all content and close.” It’s family life at its purest — tender, chaotic and profoundly human.
My final meeting proves just as inspiring,
introducing me to perhaps the most unlikely gorilla guardians of all. At the park gate Francis greets me with his broad, familiar smile, Brenda beside him. Both belong to the Gorilla Organization and together we drive to the outskirts of Rubuguri village, where a huddle of men in their Sunday best waits to greet us. Ten years ago, they were poachers, dodging forest patrols, slipping past herds of territorial elephants and hunting bushmeat to sell on the black market. “We spent a long time teaching them why
conservation matters,” Brenda explains. “But we also bought land for them and trained them in organic farming. Why would you stop poaching if you’re desperate, if there’s no other way to feed your family?” The men stand beaming, gesturing proudly to
neat rows of Irish potatoes, lines of baby aubergines and sprawling beds of onions. “We were wild, living like the animals we hunted,” Kanezio says, adjusting his bowler hat and straightening his bomber jacket. “Look at us today though. We sell what we grow, we can send our children to school, and we teach other men that’s there’s a way out.” What was once a tide of poaching has ebbed to
a trickle, just 2% of its former scale and a change shaped largely by men like these. “We know our communities, we can get through to them,” Kanezio continues. “We also alert rangers when something’s amiss or when we hear rumours poachers are trying to enter the park.” Now, the group stands not as predators but as
protectors — a living reminder of how lives and outlooks can be transformed. When I ask Kanezio how he sees gorillas, he smiles. “Today, we are friends,” he says softly. “Today, we are one.”
HOW TO DO IT: A stay at Volcanoes Safaris’ Mount Gahinga Lodge costs from around £570 a night, including full board and lodge activities.
volcanoessafaris.com Gorilla-trekking permits are around £600 per person and include park entry. The easiest way to reach Bwindi and Mgahinga is via Entebbe International Airport. Uganda Airlines flies direct from Gatwick, while internal connections to Kisoro and Kihihi airstrips — the closest to the gorilla parks — are offered by Aerolink Uganda, reducing the journey from a 10-hour drive to under an hour.
ugandairlines.com
aerolinkuganda.com To support the work of the Gorilla Organization and help secure the future of mountain gorillas, visit
gorillas.org
Clockwise from top: With its volcanic soils, abundant rainfall and year-round sunshine, Uganda can grow almost any crops; Kanezio turned away from poaching and is proud of the farmer he’s become; the terrace at Mount Gahinga Lodge looks out towards Mount Sabyinyo, a peak shared by Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo
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