Eucalyptus Trees & Lowland Forrest

After a rather difficult hike yesterday, we were hopeful for an easier trek today. Magnifique assured us that being on Day two we would get priority….fingers crossed. As we waited around the hectic gorilla headquarters for our assignment we mingled with a few other travelers also hoping for an easy day.

We were awarded the Hirwa Group. This group formed in 2006 and is now composed of 16 members including two silver backs, 4 adult females, 2 black backs, 4 juveniles, and 4 infants. The group derived its name from its formation process that was out of luck. Hirwa means ‘the Lucky one’ and as luck has it, the group got twins in 2011. Hirwa group inhabits the foothills of Mt. Sabyinyo to the side of Mt Gahinga. We also learned that the lead silverback was quite ill

and had been in a horrible fight just days before with a lone silver back – he was victorious saving his babies from being killed and keeping his group intact.

We drove a short 15 minutes to the edge of Eucalyptus scattered farmland and headed out on our trek. Right from the get go we noticed the flat land, and easy going nature of the walk. Once inside the forest it became very dense with many downed trees to climb over. Thankfully the Gorillas were just a 30 minute trek from parks edge (one hour in total to find them). The Gorillas were very active and we followed them playing through the dense jungle for a bit over an hour hacking and cutting our way through.

At one point we stopped to rest and take pictures and a young juvenile swaggered by Mom and smacked her playfully…as she was in his way! A few of the Gorillas obviously had their sights on being supermodels…and posed beautifully for the camera.