Another early morning rise for the drive back to Kasese airport for our next leg of Uganda. Although we left at a decent time, we think we were running a little bit behind as there were times Godfrey would be flying down the roads past kids heading to school or people heading into work. We found out that February 6 was the first day back for kids in Uganda and Godfrey told us some kids may have to walk up to 1-2 hours to make it there. We saw numerous kids starting their walk to school in the darkness just as we too were starting our drive before sunrise.

It was a quick flight over to Kihihi, even with first making a stop in Kisoro to drop off passengers. A local woman on the plane told us Kisoro gets very windy later in the day so the pilots likely wanted to make that stop first. It was then only a 10 minute flight from Kisoro to Kihihi where we were picked up by another driver, Levan, who drove us to our lodge in Buhoma. We were thankful we had switched our lodging from a different one as Buhoma Haven was just 2 km outside the park for gorilla trekking. It was a great view of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Although we were offered to take a tour of the community, we decided to have lunch and just relax the rest of the day knowing our upcoming Kenya leg is going to be very full. And again the food at this lodge did not disappoint! We had spaghetti for lunch and another 3 course meal for dinner with pumpkin soup, rosemary chicken, and a banana fritter. The service at every lodge in Uganda was always pretty formal and you could tell everyone was trained to be as helpful as possible. We chatted with the waitress a bit on differences in fruits and vegetables between our countries – we figured what they call pumpkin here is likely equivalent to our butternut squash (we had great “pumpkin” soup numerous times). After finishing dessert and our chats with the waitress we turned in for bed so we could get an early start the next morning to meet a gorilla family!

We could tell the difference right away with the gorilla trekking from entering into Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and arriving at the briefing center. Before entering the area, we had to sanitize our hands and get our temperatures taken (first real COVID precautions we’ve had to do traveling). Then we were ushered to the waiting area where we were entertained with local Uganda songs and dance from members of the community. After a quick video and separating into groups, it was off into the forest to find our gorilla family. Unlike the chimpanzee tracking, it was a 10-15 minute walk up a road and then 5 minutes into the forest before we were greeted with gorillas hanging out in the trees. Once we arrived, they started climbing down from the trees (some passing right by us) and congregating around some trees on the ground. We maybe saw 10-15 members of this family, 4 of which were infants and the dominant male (which was a silverback). The infants definitely added to the fun of watching them as they would run around playing with each other and climbing the trees. Most of the time the trees would bend and the infants would fall out. The energy of the infant gorillas spread to the older gorillas as well, and we had times where they would wrestle each other and even beat on their chests with their open hands as what seemed like and expression of joy or fun. Even with all the action, they would walk right past any human almost as though we weren’t there, but with the exception of an infant reaching out to touch a woman that we caught on video. With all the surrounding trees and foliage, it was sometimes hard to get clear shots of them so it was easy to video. But there are plenty more on the photos page to explore!

It was crazy how fast the hour flew by before we had to leave them. Again, Grant and I were left in awe that we had just experienced that. One of the ladies in our group had done this over 16 times with this trek being her 4th of the week. She had two more planned for this week before she heads off to Kenya. She got some amazing shots, especially of the infants that she posted on her Instagram. She told us she has also won an award for one of her shots that ended up in the Kennedy Center where she got to meet the Prince of Monaco. Her driver was also very interested in talking to Grant since he worked for Spacex and his son was obsessed with Elon Musk. They exchanged info so that his son could reach out and learn more from Grant about what he does. It has been fun to meet new people along this trip and hear their stories. We also met two Americans in our group that were recently laid off from tech companies in San Fran, one of which being Twitter. So needless to say he wasn’t too happy about Elon taking over, but they said they’re still getting severance while on this trip so makes it feel like a vacation still.

Ending our leg in Uganda, we stayed at a resort nearby the airport in Kihihi so we didn’t have another early morning drive. It was nice to finally sleep past 6 am. We realized we were the only ones staying at this lodge as it is near the end of their “busy” season before rainy season comes. We enjoyed breakfast with Levan, who has shared so many stories with us especially his time in Iraq. He is also very up to date with everything going on the world (way more than me as I don’t keep up with any news…). Heading back to Entebbe we were joined by a lovely Dutch couple we had first met a few days prior on our flight to Kasese. They gave us some great tips for what we were going to see in our next few weeks left in Africa. They had also previously lived in Cape Town and are giving us a list of places we should do and see.

Next up Kenya Safari! And Grant will finally get to see the big cats he’s been waiting for!