I've Got A Fever...And The Only Cure Is...

Ok, back from a long break from everything: Kampala, work, internets, and good health.

About two weeks ago I went, with the crew of other foreigners who are here for an extended stay, to secure Gorilla permits so that we could see the famous mountain gorillas. These are the Diane Fossey, Gorillas in The Mist gorillas. There are about 700 alive in the world, about half are in Uganda. The permit date we were able to secure: 06/06/06. The cost: 666,000 Ugandan Shillings (this is a lot of money in any currency, but let’s just say I’ve never left the bank with so much anxiety having to carry this on minibuses across town to the Ugandan Wildlife Authority).

I was pretty sure all these sixes were a good omen. I’m just that type of guy. Then I got malaria the day before we were suppose to see the gorillas…

Ok, basically everyone here has some level/form of malaria. Minor headaches and fevers come and go, but we’re all on medication and the common, less-resistant varieties can be held in check. After two days on dusty, polluted buses though, I found myself in a hotel room in Kisoro – near the Democratic Republic of the Congo border – with a nasty fever and the beginnings of some minor delusions that I was worried could be a nasty more-resistant variety of malaria. It was late anyway and I decided to self-medicate by taking an extra dose of medication. It worked and the fever broke overnight – I woke up literally soaking wet, a little delirious from a hectic night of dreams I’d rather not talk about.

Two hours stuffed in the back of a tiny private car chugging up mountain roads and I was pretty sure that if I could survive that, I’d be able to hike to the gorillas. The sun rose on 6/6/6 and we had beautiful views of the Virunga volcanic range that borders the DRC and took in the sights of the lush farm land that lines the mountain sides in steppes. I told the guide about my condition and he recommended I keep my distance from the gorillas, but that it was fine.

We descended down through the farms on the edge of the park (the Bwindie Impenetrable Forest – this is good: “bwindie” means ‘impenetrable.’ It use to be called simply the impenetrable forest national park, but was renamed Bwindie National Park after independence – tourists didn’t seem to like that as much, so they added the ‘impenetrable’ again, effectively naming it the “Impenetrable Impenetrable Forest”) and met up with the trackers. These guys go to the spot where the gorillas were seen the previous day and follow their “scent” and try to find their nests from the night between. Gorilla nests are basically huge brush piles, which they can create practically with the flick of a wrist, that they sleep on top of and basically defecate all around. The gorillas are usually within a half-kilometer from their nests that morning, they make a different nest every night and sometimes the nests can be 10 kilometers apart…that’s 10 kilometers of jungle hiking; thankfully we didn’t have to do any of that.

Just a 15 minute walk from the tracking party and it sounds like someone is trying to drive a bus through the jungle – well, no engine sounds, but definitely grunting. Two gorillas bound past us and I don’t even want to think about getting in the way of one of these things. We follow them to a river where everybody’s hanging out: the family consists of 19 members – three are infants or younger, two are giant silver-back males, one the alpha-male, the other an alpha in waiting. We got to see 8 of them, including two of the babies and the alpha male in waiting, who is actually the largest member of the group.

The Flickr site has some photos and some descriptions, but there’s not much I can say – it was so surreal. You know when you go to sleep at night after being in the ocean and you can still feel like you’re in the waves, but it doesn’t make you feel sick or anything, it just feels nice and nostalgic and it kind of puts you to sleep? The night after, when I closed my eyes I saw images of gorillas everywhere and it gave me the same feeling.

We only got an hour with them, and they’re not easy to photograph because they move a lot and they only let you get close for short periods, but I do have lots of good shots – more to come. I tried to shy away from my camera after the first 10 minutes though, because you really just wanna be still and look at them. They’ll glance over whatever leaf they happen to be eating and stare at you once in a while and it’s completely disarming. They look interested in you, but they also look like they might want to pounce and sever your head just to see if the expression on your face would change. Of course they’re very much habituated to humans and that wouldn’t happen, but the ‘habituation process,’ as I’d learn, takes three years (7 years for this family because of extenuating circumstances) and teams of highly skilled, organized individuals to pull it off. When you realize what it takes to make these animals accessible to humans you can easily understand why it costs so much to visit them.

And that access is problematic, but it does breed conservation. I know I learned a ton from being around those beasts; our guides, guards, and trackers were great too. A great experience that I’m very thankful I was able to participate in.

That said, my fever returned on the hike up, but I could tell it wasn’t malaria this time. By late afternoon, back in the car and consumed by dust, I was pretty sure I was being hit with the flu. We did make it to Lake Bunyoni by night fall and spent a beautiful two nights at a small hotel there, but I woke up the next day on that lake sicker than I’ve been in years. Been pretty miserable for the three days since, but am on the mend now and will even enjoy my first beer in a week while watching the England soccer match this afternoon.

The gorillas are the only thing keeping me from a jealous rage over those of you who are in Germany right now. Do your part on Monday.