Here are some photos taken while gorilla trekking in the Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2010.
I went on this expedition with the rangers of the Virunga National Park. Here is my blog entry for this day, “Close Encounters with Mountain Gorillas.” Here are video clips I took while gorilla trekking.
For permission to reprint images without watermark, please contact me at eileenploh@gmail.com.
Thanks and enjoy!
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- Serena, Dani and I went gorilla tracking with 3 guides, all rangers of the Virunga National Park in the Congo. We started out walking along this really lovely mountain steppe …
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- … then entered the dense and unforgiving mountain jungle.
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- A shot of my fellow trekkers, including the ranger in back (who is fully over our picture-taking). I didn’t take many snaps along the hike, because it was brutal, and I was more focused on moving forward and keeping my lungs from exploding.
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- After several hours we came upon this large family of gorillas, and these were the first ones we saw. At this time we were standing in an absolute downpour and it’s hard to see …
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- … but the gorilla in front is holding a baby.
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- This one came galloping over to us, and as much as I’d like to blame the weather or my wet camera for the blurriness of the photo, it’s most likely because my hands were shaking.
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- O HAI!
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- Watching them just hanging out, doing their everyday thing in the jungle was fascinating.
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- A lot more gorillas showed up, checking out the visitors. Our guide Norbert told us they wanted to play with us.
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- But we declined, so instead they played with each other.
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- Gorilla playing includes running, tumbling, swatting, chasing and swinging on vines.
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- There are only about 700 mountain gorillas left in the world
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- … so it was really an extreme privilege to be able to see them in their natural habitat, doing what they do.
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- Cheeky monkey!
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- The Mack Daddy of all time: the silverback.
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- Silverback in a tree. He looked like King Kong.
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- They look really fierce, but the gorilla guides assured us they are gentle. Still a bit scary being up close to them, on their turf.
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- They were high up in trees, tearing thick branches off like they were made out of balsa wood, looking for fruit.
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- This guy’s weight took down a big tree near me (and he fell pretty far), and I was afraid he was hurt. But he popped up off the ground and got on this log …
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- … and saw me, and started climbing up the log toward me. Again, wish this picture weren’t so blurry, and again, it was probably a shaky-hands situation more than anything.
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- He sat directly in front of me, just a few feet away, and we checked each other out. One of the most astonishing moments of my life.
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- Back from the trek, soaked and exhausted and happy, with our fabulous guides and the active Nyiragongo volcano behind us.
