Is Gorilla Habituation Experience Worth The Money.
The Gorilla Habituation Experience in Uganda is the only one that gives you longer time—about four hours—with the wild mountain gorillas in their natural environment, hence it is worth the money invested. And it is only provided in Uganda; nowhere else. Your sole hour with a habituated gorilla family comes from the normal gorilla trekking trip.
Still, wandering a few meters discreetly from a wild silverback and his whole family in a chilly foggy dark forest is one of the best pleasures of travel. There is nothing like the surge of adrenaline you get when a behemoth squarely faces your direction.
The closest you can go to experiencing the life of a wild mountain gorilla not totally habituated to the human presence is the gorilla habituation experience in Uganda’s highland woods.
Still, the issue is whether the experience justifies the $1500 permit fee. Let’s inquire.
What is experience with gorilla habituation?
Naturally wild creatures, gorillas have evolved to hide far from predators—especially humans—when approached or turn hostile when attacked. They so reside far up the inhabitable mountain forest in order to escape constant interaction with people who have hunted them and reclaimed their habitats for millennia.
To help the gorillas believe people won’t endanger them, experts lead a group through a gradual habituation process within their natural environment for two to five years. There is little intervention with the way the gorillas live throughout this process. Researchers replicate their way of life and make their pleasant presence known rather than feeding or coercing them into compliance.
Usually one hour, people are permitted to visit for a limited minimum and monitored period when the gorillas are no longer hostile or avoiding the primatologists: what is often known as gorilla trekking? Although many gorilla groups live distant from human interaction, others have become habituated to let visitors visit them close-by.
For this reason, the gorilla habituation experience is an adventure in the gorilla forest followed by rangers and researchers on their daily trips of habituating a wild gorilla family. Following and matching the everyday tasks of the gorilla group, the exercise runs around four hours. Four hours is really a lot to spend in the open woodland region with a wild animal. The trip is worth more than the usual gorilla hike.
The Habituation Experience of the Gorilla
Suddenly you are among a group of silently resting gorillas nibbling away at a vegetarian dinner as you wake through vines and scramble over difficult terrain. Resting on the ground of the forest, you see their daily exchanges as they feed, groan, fart, and groom one another with shockingly compassionate motions.
Should the chillout last somewhat longer, they could be already on their way for another foraging trip, waking through the thick forest with perfect ease. You follow like a dreamer under a spell, matching their movement and wonder at how very similar we all are.
The brief calm moments cause you to forget you are carrying a camera; the fast hard activities to keep up pass by like a June breeze. You find yourself lost in time and must leave your cousins alone after four hours. “It’s time to leave!” your ranger says as she touches your shoulder.
Starting an early morning briefing, the gorilla habituation journey teaches you a little about the wild gorillas you will be seeing and basic guidelines on behavior near them. Avoiding touch and keeping at least 10 meters back comes first on the list. Not just for your personal safety but also for the gorillas because closely related DNA allows human respiratory ailments to readily affect them.
It is likewise ill advised to copy their calls. Although it might be entertaining to copy them, if you’re not cautious you could unintentionally be copying a war cry and jark a 180-kg enraged silverback down upon you. Once you have been informed, your small party of around four visitors, a skilled tracker guide, two armed rangers, and sometimes some researchers go into the jungle looking for the gorilla family.
From a team of rangers keeping with the gorillas, you will trek following directions on a walkie-talkie, pushing through the knotted undergrowth, crouching beneath low branches, and monitoring your step for twisted roots. Once you locate them, the gorilla habituation experience clock will begin running for four hours.
You will either sit with them or track their movements as they forage during the first part of the day. Your local tracker guide will assist you to steer your positions and inform you about the gorilla family members, their social traits, and their environment during this period. Pay great attention as that material is worth the money you spent.
The gorilla habituation experience is valuable because of the raw uncurated adventure in a wild habitat. What those committed people go through to save the gorillas and remain with them all through the habituation process cannot be measured.
Gorillas have been able to escape the curse of extinction and thrive in tiny forest areas coexisting with high human density via this mechanism. The cost of the permit is only a little thank you to these committed folks.
Experience with habituation against gorilla trekking
First, costing the same in Rwanda ($1500), the gorilla habituation experience is worth more than the gorilla trekking experience. You will most certainly select the former if you had the option to spend four hours with a gigantic ape in a jungle instead of one for the same cost.
Second, the longer period allows you more opportunity to get acquainted with the social life and behavior of the gorillas, therefore increasing your appreciation of their presence. Though it would let you mark an activity on your vacation schedule, the one hour with gorilla trekking could not provide the same experience.
Thirdly, the many photographic possibilities presented by the habituation experience are well worth the cost of the license. Four hours is enough to settle in, locate ideal camera locations, and get the greatest viewpoints you could hardly manage on the gorilla trekking trip.
Eight people are allowed to attend Gorilla Trekking trips. The habituation experience brings only four individuals, so it is more personal than the hiking trip.
Though most of all the price tag might be costly, it’s a terrific technique to help much with gorilla protection. Returning something valuable in order to help a cause is well worth it. Not only the gorillas gain from your experience; the local lodges, guides, and rangers who work from the nearby villages rely greatly on the activity.
Locations for experience with gorilla habituation
Only Uganda offers Gorilla Habituation Experience in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Given that Bwindi provides more trekking facilities than any other gorilla site and safeguards about half of the worldwide mountain gorilla population, it is worth the gorilla experience.
Within Bwindi, the gorilla habituation experience takes place in the southern Rushaga Sector of the park. For the habituation experience, Rushaga has two gorilla families at disposal.
How to reach that?
About 490 kilometers from Entebbe International Airport, the main entrance into Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is situated in the extreme southwest corner of the country.
Usually driving ten hours from Entebbe, gorilla safaris join the gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi and stay at least two nights in the Rushaga/Nkuringo region. For adventure lovers who wish to explore the grandeur of the southwest Uganda region—which has been likened to Switzerland—the drive is worth the money.
Should you find the 10-hour travel intolerable, you may arrange a little scheduled flight to Kisoro Airstrip, around two hours’ drive from Rushaga/Nkuringo, where advised accommodation is found.
You will drive around Bwindi via Kihihi-Ruhija and down to Rushaga if you are heading south from wildlife watching in Queen Elizabeth National Park and chimpanzee treking in Kibale. Particularly in the wet seasons, this is a more labor-intensive trip as the route is unpaved.
