In the standard briefing before every gorilla trek in Uganda, visitors are told: the gorillas may approach you, and if they do, stay still and do not make direct eye contact. What the briefing does not fully convey is what it feels like when a gorilla decides that your group is interesting enough to follow. The account below is drawn from the documented experience of a trekking group at Rushaga sector in 2021 — the guides who led it describe it as one of the most unusual encounters in their combined twenty-plus years of leading treks at Bwindi.
The Context
The trekking group had spent their permitted hour with the Mishaya family in a section of forest near the Rushaga sector boundary. The hour had been eventful by normal standards — close proximity to the silverback, active juveniles, good photographic conditions. When the guide signalled the end of the hour and the group began moving back toward the trail, one of the group’s adolescent males — a gorilla of approximately eight years, known to the guides by a distinctive facial marking — did not resume normal foraging. He watched the group begin to move and then followed.
The Follow
The guides noticed immediately and signalled the group to continue moving at a steady pace without stopping or turning. This is the protocol: stopping or turning toward a gorilla who is following can be interpreted as a challenge or can encourage closer approach. Moving steadily signals that you are neither threatening nor inviting further interaction. The adolescent followed for approximately 200 metres along the return trail, maintaining a distance of ten to fifteen metres from the group’s rear, moving parallel to the trail through the undergrowth rather than on the path itself.
At no point did the guides feel the situation was unsafe. The adolescent was alone — separated from the main group’s range, which would concern the silverback if the separation extended too long — and his behaviour was curious rather than aggressive. He was not displaying. He was not vocalising. He was, in the guides’ assessment, simply interested in these large, pale, strange-smelling creatures who had been standing near his family for an hour and were now leaving.
What the Trekkers Experienced
The accounts collected from the group’s members describe an experience of controlled exhilaration — the awareness of being followed by a wild animal, the physical response of elevated heart rate and acute attention, and the trust placed in the guides whose calm instruction governed exactly how the situation should be navigated. Several described it as more immediately affecting than the permitted hour itself — because it was unscripted, because it was happening on the walk back when they had assumed the significant part of the day was over, and because the adolescent’s curiosity felt, in that moment, entirely personal.
The adolescent turned back after 200 metres. The guides believe he reached the edge of his family’s range and the social pull of returning to the group exceeded his curiosity about the trekkers. He was observed by the rear ranger making a direct return into the forest. The guides waited until they could no longer hear movement before proceeding. The return to the base took a further two hours. Nobody talked very much on the way back.
What This Illustrates About Gorilla Trekking
Gorilla trekking in Uganda in 2027 is a managed experience. The protocols exist, the distances are maintained, the rules are observed. Within that managed experience, however, the gorillas’ behaviour is their own and cannot be fully predicted or scripted. The adolescent who followed the group for 200 metres was not doing anything the briefing had not accounted for — but he was doing it in a way that nobody had arranged. The gorilla permit costs $800. What happens in the forest is the gorillas’ decision.
