During my first trip to Rwanda and Uganda back in 2022, I went on a gorilla trek! I woke up at 6:30 a.m. for my briefing at Bwindi National Park in Uganda. The guides taught us how to behave around the gorillas, demonstrated their sounds and gestures and then assigned us a gorilla family to visit in the mountains. Our group included three Brazilian and two American tourists, our guide and two guards. We hiked for 2.5 hours through a jungle with no clear path. Eventually, our trackers (who monitored the gorillas) called to say they had found them. Although the gorillas are monitored, they roam the mountains freely. The trackers told us we had to always stay six feet away because the gorillas’ genetics are so similar to ours (we share about 98% of our DNA) that the gorillas could catch our germs if we got too close. We didn’t want to risk getting them sick!
The mountain gorilla is a subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It is one of the world's largest living primates, with muscular arms, a massive chest and broad hands and feet. They are covered in long, thick black hair that helps keep them warm in the cooler temperatures. Male mountain gorillas are called silverbacks due to the swathe, or large area, of silver hair on their backs. Silverbacks tend to mature around age 14 and can weigh up to 430 pounds.
