At the side of the path we had just vacated was a huge silverback Mountain gorilla, perhaps even the dominant male of the Nkringo family we were tracking. He was lying on his stomach, his massive head hovering above his crossed forearms, patiently watching us.Once we were out of his way, he heaved his 200 kg of solid bulk onto his knuckles and with a deliberate, confident gait, walked right by us, only a meter away, and into the thick undergrowth on the other side of the path.
A moment passed, and we realized we were all holding our breaths. The sardonic Italian teacher who kept claiming she want to ‘hug a baby’, the beautiful French/German aid worker tall and lean and gentle, the 70-something adventurers, husband and wife, who had recently walked across the desert in Mali. All of us exhaled and loosened our grips on each other’s arms.
We had reached the habituated family group, about 14 of the world’s 350 surviving of Mountain Gorillas, after a horrific 2 hour drive from the Ugandan border town of Kisoro, along a rutted sloping cliff-edge mountain road that only a Land Cruiser could grip. The views, as the first rays of sunrise gilded the terraced volcanic slopes, were spectacular. They marched in lush green ridges towards the three distant blue volcanoes that mark the border with Congo and Rwanda .
From the ridge-top office, a rude hut of concrete and tin 
where we collected our guide, porters and Kalishnikov-armed trackers, we began an arduous single-file descent, 600 meters down a steep slippery footpath of red clay, through grassy fields, banana plantations and eucalyptus and pine plantations.
where we collected our guide, porters and Kalishnikov-armed trackers, we began an arduous single-file descent, 600 meters down a steep slippery footpath of red clay, through grassy fields, banana plantations and eucalyptus and pine plantations. As we neared the river at the bottom of the valley, we entered the famed Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and immediately spotted our first gorilla, a juvenile sitting high up in a tree, calmly watching us through a gap in the foliage as he stripped leaves from branches with his mouth.
Within a few meters, we had encountered the whole family, 3 mature male Silverbacks, 3 young adult male Blackbacks and a number of females and juveniles.
They sat, half hidden by the lush greenery, their glossy ebony faces turning occasionally to look at us, blinking deep eyes , looking more bored than curious. Their hands, disproportionately huge, even for their bulk, delicately plucked crisp green leaves or scratched at annoying insects. A baby provided some entertainment by climbed a tree and swinging from a branch. A silver back lay flat on his back on the slope below and watched us, upside down, through his eyebrows.
We spent the next hour slipping through the dense undergrowth, careful to follow the trackers’ urging to stay together and make as little noise as possible. Breathlessly we crouched, only meters from these huge, sleek mounds of muscle, and watched every twitch and blink, occasionally snapping out-of-focus photos.
As the allocated hour neared its end, the adults disappeared, leaving a pair of juveniles to entertain us by cavorting on a dead tree limb until it broke under their weight. But they too, responding to the distant barks of the dominate male, bounded off, deeper into the forest. We climbed slowly back up the slope in a daze, plodding one foot in front of the other, the porters occasionally giving us a hand when knees or lungs failed. It had been a rare privilege as clumsy 
outsiders, to be admitted into the forest home of these impressive, gentle primates, our closest genetic cousins. Their odds for survival are not great with conflict in Congo and the encroachment of growing human needs for land and hardwood in Rwanda and Uganda. We can only hope that future generations will have the opportunity I just did to spend an hour visiting their home.
outsiders, to be admitted into the forest home of these impressive, gentle primates, our closest genetic cousins. Their odds for survival are not great with conflict in Congo and the encroachment of growing human needs for land and hardwood in Rwanda and Uganda. We can only hope that future generations will have the opportunity I just did to spend an hour visiting their home. 
