THIS WAS SUCH A GREAT DAY! Truly a surreal experience. I will admit that I had no idea what to expect when we started cutting our way through the impenetrable forest… the only place wild silverback gorillas still exist in the wild. It is definitely properly named. The terrain was practically a vertical slope with thick brush. We were accompanied by a few rangers and a guide. The rangers begin the day early finding one of the many wild gorilla families roaming through the forest. Our guide leads us to them. The rangers are packing AK47’s in the event that we cross paths with an elephant. They can be very aggressive so they would shoot in the air to scare them off. We didn’t cross paths with any elephants… not sure if I am sad about that or incredibly relieved… haha!

Resource Magazine helped facilitate a sponsorship by ThinkTank Photo in which they provided me a KILLER camera backpack (Shapeshifter Pro) to aid in my quest to take some incredible jungle photos on this trip. I will be writing a thorough review at the end of my trip… but this bag was such a huge help for this trek. I had a porter help me when it came time to climbing vertical terrain and I was so thankful for him! He just smiled at me, held my hand and helped me climb up and down and lug my equipment across the jungle.

Luckily for us we didn’t have to trek too far into the jungle before we heard it. And let me tell you- it was one of the most wonderful, awe-inspiring experiences of my life. You’re just walking through and you hear the gorillas calling to one another that we are quickly approaching. These gorillas are pretty habituated to people and the guides knew how to instruct us to ensure safety. Don’t run if they approach you, etc. You suddenly feel SO SMALL and wonder how the heck humans are even at the top of the food chain because those gorillas are crazy powerful. When the silverback beats his chest you feel the ground shake. We hung out with them for about an hour and a half. The highlight/a moment that will be hard to top in life was when the big daddy silverback ran right at me. I ducked down out of instinct and as I was crouched down I felt it’s hand on my back. It was a pretty gentle pat on the back and the guide said that in all of his years of working at Bwindi that was the first time the silverback has made physical contact. CRAZY! I was wearing a white shirt and have half of a dirty gorilla hand print on the back. Never washing that shirt! It was like a real life Donkey Kong tap in… haha! Can’t recommend this experience enough.