My Olympic story

In 2012 London hosted the Olympics

With the world descending on London, I decided to take myself to Bwindi in Uganda 

Why? to see gorillas in their natural habitat

If you look it up on the map Bwindi is not a place the UK Foreign Office recommend you travel to

It has it's own set of guerrillas, who have been known to take a westerner hostage

We were reminded of this when we arrived in Kampala, the capital, at the start of the holiday

We were in Uganda for a week, the last 2 days we would be tracking the gorillas and hopefully not being tracked by guerrillas

On the day, my group was allocated the “Mubare” troop of gorillas

We were given strict instructions when you find the group

  • You will stay no more than one hour
  • The guides will tell you where to stand
  • If you are approached by a gorilla, don’t panic and step away

 

When we came across the troop, they had just eaten

I was down wind from the silverback who seemed to take great joy in farting in my direction

But, they all sat in the bushes and you couldn’t get a photo

Our hour with them ticked away

It was amazing to share time with them, the fart smell was not pleasant 

With 50 minutes gone, our guides said 10 minutes to go

And still none of us had got a decent photo

It looked like we had come all this way and got nothing

Then, with 10 minutes to go, the female matriarch got up and walked past me

At this point the guides are going ballistic at me to move

I had the choice at this point to move out of the way of matriarch and move closer to the silver back (and his farts)

She didn’t seem to care about me

She then plonked herself down on a jungle path as if to say

“take your photos and then leave”

At that point, all of the troop came out and sat with us

And then, we had to leave

It was such a great trill and honour 

The learning is be patient, things might not happen in your timeframe, but they will happen