Mountain Gorillas

 In 1938 my mother set off for darkest Africa to found a school in south-west Uganda.  In those days, before the war, few Europeans went into the depths of Africa, and certainly not 24 year old girls.  She stayed there for eight years before marrying my father who lived in Zanzibar and joining him there.  Her school, in a tiny village called Kabale, became one of the leading schools in Uganda.  Even Idi Amin sent his children.  

50 years later, in 1994, the headmistress Lilian Kigorogoro invited her, with the first pupils (now a retired surgeon, doctor and architect) to come and celebrate.  My mother was now 80.  The children of the school had spelt out a welcome message in flowers on the grassy bank and celebrated with music, acting and dancing.  The British High Commissioner, and some Ugandan cabinet ministers who were ex-pupils, came down for the day too.  Most of the original school buildings were still there, amazingly well preserved.  It was a great day and very moving.  

Not far from Kabale are the frontiers with Rwanda and the Congo (DRC).  On these borders volcanic mountain ranges surge upwards from the tropical rainforest.  And here live the world's only Mountain Gorillas; highly intelligent, gentle herbivore giants.  Just a year before our visit, small groups of eco-tourists were first allowed to go and watch them, and we felt it was an opportunity not to be missed.  

Their closest habitat to Kabale was The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.  We'd pre-booked a very basic camping site in the forest, which held just about a dozen people.  That was the only place to stay.  From there a guide took two groups of only half a dozen into the forest every day or so, to where the gorillas had last been seen.   Then trackers took over to follow their route through the dense forest.  Wherever the gorillas had gone, we went, crawling under scrub or scrambling up steep gradients.  It took hours and was exhausting.   

In the deep forest were several families of gorillas, but only two families had been naturalised to tolerate human beings.  As they share 98% of our DNA, they are extremely like us and can catch the same diseases, but while we have built up many immunities, a simple cold could wipe them out.  So extreme caution is necessary.  No one with a cough or runny tummy is allowed into the forest, and 15 feet was the closest contact allowed.  

But the gorillas haven't read the rule book and the guide warned us that sometimes a huge silverback might suddenly block the path.  Hmm, we felt nervous.  Sometimes he might charge, but you mustn't ever run.  That would be a disaster, gorillas are a lot faster than you are.  So you drop to your knees in subservience and look at the ground, while making little grunting noises which gorillas find relaxing.  It's easy to feel subservient when you're close to a 200kg mountain gorilla!  

We were lucky.  After hours we found our family group, but only a stay of one hour was permitted.  Some visitors might only see a hairy arm from behind a tree and had to be content with that.  Others, after a long trek, reached the Congo border and had to turn back disappointed.  It was sheer luck.  There were no guarantees.  

We were in a clearing where a huge fallen tree blocked our path.  On the other side was the family, a vast silverback, four females, and several 'children' scampering about, swinging on lianas and climbing over the adults and sliding down their Dad's back.  They noticed us but ignored us, as we watched and photographed them.  They are so very like us!  

Eventually one of the little ones became more and more interested in us and kept approaching until he was far too close for his safety and the trackers had to keep gently whisking him back with leafy sprigs .  He gazed at us all in turn, fascinated, his little amber eyes melting our hearts.  (My photo above)  

When the family moved off we followed, but one of our group stepped forward between the silverback and a little one.  Bad mistake!  Instantly, with a terrifying roar, the whole tree above the silverback was shaken as if torn by a hurricane and he bounded towards us.  Our instinct was to run, but the guide reminded us to drop to our knees and we grunted humbly.  Almost at once he accepted our apology and returned to his tree.  

The gorilla story has been a cautious success with numbers at last back above 1,000.  But that's all that remain.  Their biggest problem isn't just poaching but loss of habitat as human plantations encroach further and further into this last stronghold of irreplaceable tropical rainforest.  Now though, there is a new threat.  Coronavirus, our familiar demon, would be even more dangerous to gorillas than it is to us and could easily wipe them all out.  

I strongly recommend going to see these incredible creatures, who, like chimps, are our closest cousins, but please do what you can to help protect them.  They are so precious.  WWF have lots of information on-line and you can give directly towards their preservation. 

What were you doing 40 years ago?

What were you doing 40 years ago?  I went for a walk.  I'd read about a lake set in the volcanic desert of north-west Kenya nicknamed the Jade Sea which, in certain weather conditions, turned jade green.  The world's biggest desert lake with its densest population of crocodiles.  Lake Turkana.  I wanted to see it.  So I decided to make a walk on its west side in the lands of the Turkana tribe.  It was extraordinarily remote in 1980, a little-explored region where I even came across people who'd never seen a white man before.  I walked with some local tribesmen and loaded donkeys for 150 miles, blisteringly hot and digging in the ground for our water.  The area was also beset with bandits of different kinds!  It was an exciting time, and I was hooked.  Over the next five years I kept going back until I'd walked on all sides of the lake, covering about 1200 miles. It became more and more exciting, and more and more dangerous!

Eventually I had to write a book to describe it all:  Walks on the Wild Side published by Eye Books.  The most important thing for me was absolute truth.  It was exciting enough without any lily-gilding, and the story is told in great detail, including the killing of one of my companions.  But first I had my busy career in the Film Industry, doing Special Effects in movies like Alien and The Empire Strikes Back. So only after I retired did I have the time to write.

Those treks taught me a lot about our relationship with our world, and how penniless and often half naked tribesmen had a dignity which commanded respect.  In many ways they were more honourable than their wealthy Western counterparts.  Who has been destroying this planet?  Not them. 

And of course I leaned a lot about myself, my own reaction to danger and fear.  When planning a trip into remote life-threatening places, the most important lesson to learn is not how to get fit and strong (although important), or even how brave you think you are.  The most important is to understand your own mortality and to accept how small you are.  When we have left our Western props behind, we realise we have no more rights to life than the people we are amongst and we find ourselves absolutely equal to them.  Without that understanding we can never relax in extreme situations or be able to cope with the risks of death, dangerous thirst or sickening diet.  There is no sanctity of human life.