Gorilla attack in Uganda

"Never use your flash", we had been warned. But her flash went off. The gorilla charged at the woman. I was in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, tracking mountain gorillas in the wild. 

I had just landed in Kampala in Uganda. The arrivals area was a small open-air shed with a roof made of corrugated tin sheets and held up by iron poles. Ceiling fans were hanging from the roof. But they couldn't drive away the mosquitoes. I was in a long line for immigration with a group of old men from England. One of them asked me, "Why are you in Uganda?". I said, "To see the mountain gorillas. What about you?". He said, "We have come to see the wild flowers of Uganda". They were a group of 40 people from England - all gardeners. The immigration itself was a breeze. He hardly took 10 seconds and stamped my passport. But the customs check was a different story. They examined my bags thoroughly and went through each item. It took a long while to clear customs. I guess the import duty in Uganda is very high.

My hotel in Kampala was owned by a Pakistani. I was sitting in the hotel's bar having a local beer, Nile Lager, when I noticed that samosas (a triangular savoury pastry, fried in oil and stuffed with spiced potatoes) were available on the menu. When I ordered samosas, the waitress went over to the owner and told him. He came rushing to my table and said, "These are Pakistani samosas, not Indian. They are not vegetarian. They are filled with mutton". I said, "Fine" to his surprise and had the mutton samosas. For dinner I ordered roti (Indian flat, round bread) and curry. The waitress brought me seven rotis and mutton curry. In India, people typically eat two rotis. But the bar was full of Ugandans and they were all comfortably eating seven rotis! No wonder Ugandans win more medals in the Olympics than India. I started to eat the rotis with my hand, which is how it is eaten in India. The waitress stopped, stood and stared at me. I don't think she has seen anyone eating rotis with their hands. I looked around and saw that all the Ugandans were eating rotis with a fork and knife. They stack up the seven rotis, one on top of the other, and then cut it as a stack with their knife and dip the stack in the curry with their fork and eat it. Rotis are so popular in Uganda that they do not even know that it is of Indian origin. They consider rotis Ugandan. 

The primary purpose of my trip to Uganda was to track and see mountain gorillas in the world. They are a highly endangered species and only about 600 of them are left in the mountainous area bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Congo. You need to buy a gorilla permit, which gets sold out very fast. In Uganda, only 25 permits are sold for each day. I had bought my permit about six months earlier. I had bought the permit through an agent, because my credit card kept getting declined on the Ugandan government website. I took a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) to the agent's office to pick up my permit. A young woman in the agent's office gave me my permit and offered me a cup of black coffee. I said, "It's nice. Is it Ugandan?". She was delightedly surprised by the question and exclaimed, "Yes, it is Ugandan coffee!". She insisted that I have one more cup of coffee. She then told me that two other women had also bought gorilla permits for the next day and that they had booked a taxi to get to Kisoro, the village in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. She asked me, "Do you want the share the taxi with them? You can split the costs". I said, "Yes" and she spoke to the two women and the taxi driver and said, "The taxi will come to your hotel at 6:15 a.m. tomorrow morning". 

 The taxi arrived before time, while I was still checking out of my room. There were two women in the rear seat. They said, "We were too scared to get out of the taxi". My hotel was in the heart of a large, typical African market teeming with people and produce. I said, "It's perfectly safe. I have been here for the last two days". The two women were travelling together and had been staying in a branded Western hotel. One woman was an older woman probably in her 50's and she was travelling with her niece who was probably in her mid-20's. They were both from San Diego. The driver was a Ugandan man in his 50's. Since the life expectancy in Uganda is 60 years, he was an old man by Ugandan standards.

On the way, we stopped for breakfast in a village, where there was a line marking the Equator. You could have a coffee with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other foot in the Southern Hemisphere. The two women had brought packed ham and cheese sandwiches with them. The driver and I had a Ugandan breakfast - katogo (fried plantains with soup, beans, beef and vegetables) with Ugandan coffee. It was so filling that I could have survived the whole day without anything else. The two women were going back to Kampala after the gorilla tracking. From Kampala, they were planning to fly to Victoria Falls in Zambia and then go back to San Diego via Johannesburg. We started again after breakfast, and it was a long and arduous journey. The road steadily deteriorated as we travelled further away from Kampala. The older woman said, "The gorilla permit is so expensive. Where does all the money go?". The driver replied, "It goes to the big man". It became dark and the last two hours were uphill in a mountainous mud track. We finally reached Kisoro after 13 hours. We were checking into our hotel, when the hotel receptionist asked, "I have two rooms. I need to know who is staying with whom?". The older woman had an amused smile on her face. The younger woman flushed!

We checked into our rooms. The two women had booked a luxury suite. I was in a budget room. I switched on the water heater to have a shower and the power blew in my room. They said, "Sorry" and lit up a candle in my room. But they refused to shift me to another room. The next morning at 5 a.m., 25 people assembled in the Forest Ranger station in Kisoro. All of them were white people. I was the only non-white person. Most people were from Europe and there was a group of 12 Dutch people on a package tour. Our permits were checked and matched with our passports. We were given a talk by the Forest Ranger. "You may find the gorillas in 15 minutes or it may take 3 hours. Or you may not find the gorillas at all. There are no guarantees", he said. Other instructions followed, "Don't go near the baby gorillas. The mother will attack.", "Never use your flash", "Don't go closer than 15 feet". We were then divided into three groups. Each group was led by a guide. My group had a smartly dressed woman in a uniform as the guide. They encouraged each person to take the help of an "assistant", since the trek can get very strenuous. It also provides employment and income to the locals. My assistant, Esther, was a young 17-year-old woman, studying tourism and gorilla conservation in Kisoro. This was her part-time job. 

With our group, there was also a guard carrying a menacing gun. The guide said, "There are poachers. They carry guns. So, we carry guns too". The wealthy elite in China pay a lot of money for gorilla meat. Live infant gorillas are also captured and sold to collectors in China. The guide said, "We will trek to the last known location of the gorilla family. From there we will follow the paw prints until we find the gorillas". The trek started off easy with a well-marked trail. Then the trail petered out. The guide said, "The trails vanish overnight, due to the speed of the vegetation growth". That is why it was known as the Bwindi "Impenetrable" Forest. The guide started slashing her way through the forest with a machete. The guide said, "Watch out for the ants". One woman in the group slipped, fell down and was attacked by a swarm of ants. She was taken to a stream, had to remove her clothes and have a wash. Her clothes were washed too and she continued the trek wearing the wet clothes. It started raining and the ground became pure slush. The going steadily got tougher and there were places where I had to crawl on all fours in the slush. Esther said, "I will carry your backpack". She was perfectly fine. "I do this every day", she said. 

I was rapidly getting exhausted and was on the verge of giving up. I was soaked with rain water and sweat and covered with slush. Esther took out a pack of glucose powder and asked me to take some. I said, "I am diabetic". Esther said, "There is no sugar in your body. You need the glucose". It was now uphill and Esther pulled me with her hand and sometimes dragged me by my belt. Finally, after six hours, we found the gorilla family - four adults and four babies. Everyone was busy taking pictures. "Don't use the flash", we had been warned. One woman was taking a picture. She was about 12 feet away from the gorilla. The flash went off. The gorilla attacked. 

If a gorilla charges at you, the last thing you should do is run. A gorilla can outrun a human. The guide screamed, "Sit down. Squat. Put your head down between your knees". The woman, fortunately, complied immediately. The gorilla came to within a few inches from the crouching woman. The gorilla stared at the woman for a few minutes. The woman remained crouched. The gorilla then sniffed her and went away. The woman was in total shock. Everyone held their breath and nobody moved even a millimetre. She could barely stand and was escorted away from the gorillas. It took another six hours of trekking to get back to the Forest Ranger station. Everyone was tired and kept taking breaks. Esther had to help me all the way.

I got back to my hotel room and they had fixed the power supply. I switched on the water heater and had a much-needed shower. My shoe had broken in the trek. I had read that shoes often break during the gorilla tracking. So, I had brought an extra pair of shoes. My original plan was to go to the border and cross into Rwanda. But I was too tired. Instead, I went to Lake Bunyonyi and relaxed in a room by the lakeside for a few days. I just lazed and drank Nile beer.

Have you ever been attacked by an animal, while on safari or in a National Park? If so, where?

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Have you read my previous blog post? Click here to read, "Women power in Togo - Part 1" : http://kodavarthi.blogspot.com/2020/11/women-power-in-togo-part-1.html?m=1

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