Evolutionary Time Warp - A Trek Through Five Million Years to see the Mountain Gorillas

Located in the Kigezi Highlands along the Ugandan stretch of the Western Rift Valley and shrouded by mist, Bwindi Imprentrable Forest National Park at first sight gives off an aura of mystique. Going beneath the mist, not only is a lost world revealed, but when viewing the forest’s most famous inhabitants, the Mountain Gorillas, to a human visitor it can almost feel like entering an evolutionary time capsule. For me, as well as seeing and almost feeling the sensation of five million years of evolution, it was also a personal journey through my own life development.   

Sunrise above the mist surrounding Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

Over 25,000 years old, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest survived the last Ice Age. When seeing the rugged elevation when approaching the entrance to the national which ranges from around 4,000ft to over 8,000ft, one notices the inter-dependency of geological factors in its existence brought by the journeys that the Great Rift Valley has brought in forming the elevation enabling a continuum of plains forests to mountain forests. Watching the sunrise over the mist, the astronomical factor of Earth’s elliptical orbital path and distance from the Sun enabling the planet to have a molten core whose activity enables the formation and gradual pulling of the rift.  

  

When approaching and entering the forest on foot, its inter-dependency with the mist and rainfall becomes more apparent, the flora relying on the mist for its existence, including a dense network of streams running through the forest which help to sustain the over two hundred different species of trees, including the brown mahogany tree, and over eighty varieties of fern found in the forest. Starting the trek to find the elusive Mountain Gorillas, the sounds of the breeze blowing through the dense ferns and leaves together with the flow of the many streams running through the forest provide a pleasant accompaniment. The initial part of the trek to find the gorillas involves walking along clearly marked and largely even pathways as the park rangers who guide you keep in contact with other rangers already in the park keeping eyes on where groups of gorillas are located. Going deeper into the forest, the transition from plains forest to mountain forest becomes not only obvious with the sudden increase elevation but also in the thickening of the vegetation and the disappearance of a marked trekking route.

Having undertaken numerous treks through mountainous regions, I have over the years become use to the experience of such an activity being a step outside my comfort zone. A new experience I noticed on the gorilla trek though was how a trek can become a comfort zone within itself with the convenience of a marked route and a well-maintained path. To find the gorillas though, not only is there no marked route, but the route to view them is not often obvious to the naked eye. As the gorillas are nomadic animals, constantly moving to parts of the forest to find food and suitable material to build new nests, they are often difficult to find. With many years of experience though, the parks highly dedicated rangers have developed ways to read their movements through a strong understanding of the forest’s constantly changing conditions, which affect the movement of the gorillas. Unlike other species of gorillas, the Eastern and Western Lowland Gorillas, Mountain Goriilas cannot survive in captivity. When trekking to see them, one also needs to be careful not to leave behind too many obvious signs of human movement which may upset the gorilla’s habitat.

Finding my way to the where the gorillas had been located was a huge step outside my comfort zone within what is normally a step outside my comfort zone, especially when trekking along the less obvious routes with no obvious path. As I have expressed in previous accounts about my trekking experiences, I have often seen a trek an analogous to life experiences or to a lifespan itself with the ups and downs that often occur as well as facing up to and coping with some of the most difficult stretches of the route, before eventually being rewarded with spectacular scenery as well as a strong sense of achievement within, and ultimately raised self-esteem. Trekking towards where the gorilla a group were we going to observe going up almost vertical inclines and through thick vegetation including nettles, for which I put on gloves to avoid being stung was not only more challenging in parts that other physical challenges I have undertaken, including Kilimanjaro and Everest Base Camp, but it also came home to me that Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is appropriately named! The thickness of the vegetation together with avoiding numerous ants and mosquitos make it feel like the forest is impenetrable! Though I naturally felt spells of anxiety and frustration when undertaking this part of the trek, previous experience has taught me that though nature present challenges, rather seeing natural features as obstacles, it helps to make the strengths that the properties that they are made up of your own. For instance, using strong branches where possible to help when ascending a steep part and using the dampness in the soil to form steps.

Female Mountain Gorilla

After over four hours of challenging trekking through the biodiversity of Bwindi’s thick vegetation, we were informed by our ranger that we were close to the gorilla group we were tracking and sure enough, it wasn’t long before we noticed something moving underneath the trees. Going a few yards further, the face of a female mountain gorilla came into full view through the leaves only just a few feet away from where I was stood. As the experience unfolded, the other gorillas in the group came into view including a baby gorilla, some young gorillas and the focal point of group, the mighty Silverback.

Silverback and female gorilla with baby

Seeing a fellow primate species in its natural habitat with so much in common with humans at such close range was a very special and magic moment. Sharing a 96 per cent similarity in genetic terms, gorillas are the third closest primates to humans after chimpanzees and orangutans. In many ways visually though, they are perhaps the most similar looking primates to humans in terms of their size and features, especially their ears, fingers, toes and chest which look so human-like up close and personal. Feeling present with the gorilla group and noticing their similarities not only in appearance to humans but also in their behavior, including when a mother gorilla picks food from trees and gives it to her offspring, thus showing which foods are safe to eat. Also in common with humans, gorillas feel the need of a communal context, being together around others as part of a community in which their social and emotional skills develop, including their affectionate qualities as a species.

One of my inspirations to visit the mountain gorillas was after reading Songs of the Gorilla Nation, a book written by Dr Dawn Prince-Hughes, a primatologist with High-Functioning Autism about her experience of working with lowland gorillas in a zoo. Many people on he autistic spectrum, including to some extent myself, often find that they are more comfortable in interacting with and opening up to animals emotionally than they are with fellow humans. Dr Prince-Hughes found when working with gorillas, or ‘gorilla people’ as she referred to them, that contrary to how they are often viewed as aggressive, they are affectionate beings whom unlike some humans she had encountered, she didn’t find threatening which enabled her to observe them, including how the young gorillas they develop socio-emotional bonds with the group, which pre-school children often develop in family settings. This was a part of personal development when growing up that Dr Prince-Hughes felt she missed out on, which later became apparent to her when observing and working with gorillas as a primatologist. Feeling unthreatened by the gorillas and developing an emotional connection with them, she then felt she was able to transfer this to interacting with humans, enabling her to function effectively in the human world including bringing up a family.

Baby gorilla at play

When watching the young gorillas playing together in Bwindi, I began to see what I felt that I had largely missed out on in childhood in relation to my Asperger’s Syndrome, playing with other children my own age during my infancy, something that was noted by family members and former teachers. This was largely because back it felt ‘alien’ to me as to how to join in and play with others my age, whereas to many of my peers it came through intuition. Over the years, through observation of social conventions, I gradually managed to find ways to interact with my contemporaries by being able to replicate non-verbal signals I had been unable to interpret or give off. In recent times, through the present-day technology of social media, when reconnecting with former school classmates, some of whom remember me having so many emotional difficulties when at school, some of whom felt sorry for me, I am beginning to realise that there were so many people I grew up with I could have been good friends with had my social skills been able to develop earlier. This was the part of my life I realized had been missing when watching the young gorillas playing together.

Female gorilla with young male

The gorilla trek was a unique experience in many ways. It was a physically challenging activity that had the characteristics of a lifespan analogy, but which also enabled me to connect with our primate origins as humans and to gain an insight into my own social development. Within the few feet that I was stood from the gorillas was almost five million years of evolution, effectively a continual now, almost like an evolutionary time warp. Observing the closeness of the gorillas together in their community, I also felt I saw what has, in many ways been, also been lost within evolution with us as a species becoming ever more dependent on technology more so than on social-emotional face-to-face interaction.

Unfortunately, human actions including poaching, land mines and loss of habitat due to expanding property development have seen gorillas come close to extinction. Though still critically endangered, dedicated conservation efforts enabled by tourism have gradually helped numbers of Mountain Gorillas rise again in recent times. Conservation efforts must continue if they are to survive, for if they were to die out, not only would one of nearest primate relatives be lost, but in many ways insight into what we have lost as a species would also be gone.

Many thanks to our wonderful guide Peace and her team of rangers who led us to the gorillas

Huge thanks to Absolute Africa for arranging the experience, including our guide Manashe and driver Steve