There isn’t a week that goes by when I don’t stop and think about my amazing experience in Uganda. I am constantly looking back at my photo’s and just wishing I was back there.

I’m sure we’ve all been to places before when you enjoyed yourself but it wouldn’t bother you if you didn’t go back, well I have to say Uganda was the opposite, it was much more scenic than I had first envisioned, I guess especially as we were coming over road from Kenya and to say the roads are an experience in themselves is a bit of an understatement.. Bit of advice for the ladies out there anyone with a B cup upwards you may want to take a few extra sports bra’s for the bus trips.. It is bouncccccccy..

The rooms that we stayed in were stunning, looking over this beautiful lake and just taking in the serenity. You can swim in the lake too, just growing up near the coast where I can see what is below me – there is something about swimming in lakes that freak me out, maybe I have just watched too many cliched movies..

There are 2 ways to see the Gorilla’s the easy way in or the challenging way – now when you take the first group in who are the usual “I think I’m fit enough for the challenging way” (or we are just plain stubborn) of course we were going to try for the 2nd option.

You have to remember there isn’t a guarantee that you will see the Gorilla’s, so they send the Trackers in a couple of hours earlier to at least help narrow the search down.

Within 30 seconds on getting on the track I was on my ass, the grounds were slippery and this was just the start, to say it was a difficult trek was putting it lightly – hiking shoes definitely would’ve helped a bit, as my Asics are not made for the Ugandan jungle.

You are following the gorilla’s path, so you are climbing over fallen tree’s, sliding down muddy paths trying to find a tree half way down to stop your slide, climbing under tree’s and the jungle canopy, we are about 2 hours into the trek and are down the bottom of the gulley and then its time for the ascent back up the other side, now this was challenging, you are basically on your hands and knee’s grasping at anything that will hold your bodyweight to help pull you up this steep slippery what felt like Everest at the time (ok that was a slight exaggeration but at the time it felt like that) so here we are climbing our way back up and then…..

The call comes through the trackers are just up ahead and they have found the family of Gorilla’s- I was in a world of pain by this point, 5 hours of slipping, sliding and crawling had taken it’s toll but all of that simply disappears as soon as you see these magnificent animals in their natural habitat.

To be within metre’s of a Silverback Mountain Gorilla is something that I will never forget, you can only sit with them and their family for a maximum of an hour as human germs can be passed on them very easily – they are on the endangered list with less than 800 Mountain Gorilla’s left in the world.

You are literally on a “Gorilla High”, we were lucky enough to see the whole family, from the Silverback all the way down to the new babies. You can totally see that we really aren’t that far along the evolution line, especially with the teenage gorilla’s having what is known as farting ping pong – not much different to teenage boys right..

These are some of my photo’s and I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I do..

If you get the chance you need to see them before their numbers reduce even further into extinction.. and remember there is Option 1 the easy path is the slipping and sliding don’t appeal to you