Gorillas In The Mist Seemed To Lie Around A Lot

Tracking mountain gorillas, as many of you may recall, was made famous by American Dian Fossey (1932-1985), who went to Zaire (now called the Sporadically-Democratic Republic of Congo) and Rwanda in the ‘60s to study primates. Fossey also wrote the book “Gorillas in the Mist,” later made into a major Hollywood film starring Sigourney Weaver as Fossey, Dom DeLuise and Luciano Pavarotti as the mountain gorillas (plus body double Tom Selleck for chesty close ups).

Following standard operating procedure in Hollywood, the movie (1983) drifted as far as possible from the actual information in Fossey’s book. From what I can tell, the main truths it captured were: 1) Fossey went to Africa to study gorillas; 2) Fossey was a chain smoker; 3) Fossey was a woman.

In the book, Fossey spent most of her time observing the gorillas from afar, often unnoticed. In the movie, her whole adventure was a hugfest. She had more physical contact with the gorillas than you might expect among Italian newlyweds.

The good news is, now is one of the best times to view mountain gorillas. Tracking-tour slots, normally booked months in advance, have opened up. The bad news is the reason: This past spring, eight travelers were butchered just outside Uganda’s Bwindi National Park. And in the Congo, four tourists were abducted while tracking gorillas. Only two have been released. Rwanda’s gorillatracking park opened its gates just a few weeks ago, and many people are waiting for a little track record to develop there before venturing in.

Another bit of bad news, from a budget traveler standpoint, is the preposterously high cost for a tracking tour: $250 for a permit, $15 for park entry (plus whatever it costs you to get to there). Add to that the money your tour agency - if you use one - decides to skim off the top, which might bring the total to over $3,000 if your starting point is in the U.S.

Fossey was never thrilled about exposing the gorillas to tourists. But I didn’t know this because I didn’t buy her book until after my visit.

In the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, there are two main gorilla groups, and when I visited, the groups could best be summed up as: the group that’s easy to find and the group you might never see. Understandably, it’s easier to get in to search for the latter group, but with no refund offered, it didn’t seem worth it. I waited an extra day to get access to the first group, called the Mubare or “M” Group.

There are a few up-market jungle camps near the Buhoma gate (at park headquarters) for the big money tours, but it only cost me a few bucks to crash in the el cheapo dormitory bungalow outside the gate, and about as much to eat in their restaurant. A group of English, Aussies and Kiwis stayed with me. They had arrived a day early, hoping to get in on stand-by. They seemed particularly eager to see the gorillas.

I asked members of the group if they’d ever seen a gorilla at a zoo. They had. Then I asked if they recalled being fascinated by the animals.

“Did you at least spend 15 minutes watching them?” I inquired.

Well, no they hadn’t. I asked several other gorilla trackers I met the same question. None professed any significant interest in gorillas. So why were they spending hundreds - if not thousands of dollars - to see them? I’m still not sure. Obviously, it’s much more interesting to observe the animals in their natural environment. Or almost their natural environment; the park boundaries weren’t part of nature’s original housing project. The best reason I heard came from a Brit who said, “I suppose there’s a chance a male silverback could charge at you.”

I set out the next morning with my group of six, five of whom were Israelis on an overland trip. Only six tourists are allowed to view the gorillas each day. Anyone who becomes ill is refused access, as the gorillas are susceptible to human diseases.

William, one of the trackers, said the gorillas enjoy seeing tourists, in the way a cat appreciates company; it gets a bit lonely if no one shows up for a while.

Besides William, we traveled with an advance tracker and two armed soldiers. We were told that a couple thousand other soldiers were scattered around out of sight to help keep the Impenetrable Forest impenetrable.

The gorillas begin moving and foraging at daybreak. We started tracking them around 8:30 a.m., following their path of dung and broken twigs.

“Look, gorilla dung,” one of the trackers would point out. I couldn’t believe how excited the Israelis became at these announcements. A few of them even took pictures of the various droppings.

After a few hours of jungle trekking, cutting our way through vines covered with shag-carpet-like moss, slipping on wet roots and catching the occasional retina-burning ray of sun that managed to slice through the canopy, we caught up with “M” Group.

The tracker just in front of me cut away a low branch, tossed it aside and there was an adult female gorilla sitting up and staring at us from just a few yards away. I have to admit it was pretty exciting to be this close to a gorilla in the semi-wild.

The trackers quietly guided us into position to see the entire group, about five yards from the closest gorilla and 15 yards from the farthest of the 10 gorillas I could see (a few others were just out of sight). Our first reaction was to snap through about three rolls of film. Then we put away our smoking cameras and watched. What we saw was, well, not a whole lot. As is usually the case, the gorillas were having their midday siesta.

In the movie, the mountain gorillas were always walking around, beating their chests, climbing trees, exchanging witty jokes with Sigourney Weaver and doing other things befitting gorillas who are members of the Screen Actors Guild. In real life, they were sleeping and belching - the gorilla version of the Bundy family. In fact, the silverback in this group was named Ruhondeza, which means - I’m not kidding here - “one who sleeps a lot.”

By this time, the Israelis were growing impatient.

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” one of them asked.

William had a quick, satisfying answer: “We try to time it this way. When they’re resting, you can see them more easily and everyone gets a good picture.”

The youngest Israeli in our group, a 14-year-old, decided to toss a stick toward one of the females. This sparked a good deal of hollering, both among the gorillas and our group, all of us berating the kid for his actions.

“You’re lucky the gorilla didn’t hurt us,” chided William. “They can stay agitated for a week after something like this.”

I’m sure this is true but they seemed to switch back into siesta mode after a few minutes. And after nearly an hour of gorilla watching, we were all ready to go.

Seems the gorillas had the last laugh. It took us hours of fairly arduous jungle walking to find them. But they had simply lead us in a giant circle, picking a siesta spot no more than 150 yards from our starting point.

IF YOU GO Gorilla watching Bwindi Impenetrable Forest: http://africa-insites.com/uganda/ nationalparks/bwindiforest.htm Africa Point-Uganda Travel Information: http://www.africapoint.com/travel/Uganda.htm Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund: http:/ /www.dianfossey.org/ Dian Fossey: http://emuseum.mankato.msus.e du/information/biography/fghij/ fossey(underscore)dian.html Dian Fossey: http://members.tripod.com/DawnEve/dian.html Gorillas in the Mist: http://entertaindom.imdb.com/Reviews/ 04/0401