Description: There are few names more evocative of the wild jungles of central Africa than that of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The alien-sounding ‘Bwindi’ conjures up Africa (it literally means ‘Dark Place’); the epithet ‘impenetrable’ presents a challenge. A challenge that I was keen to take up.

The Bwindi Rainforest is a remnant of a great swath of jungle that once cloaked central Africa. At its heart the forest is some 25,000 years old. It straddles the Albertine Rift, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, covers some 331 km2 and varies in height from bottom to top by some 1500m. It is most famous for its population of 340 mountain gorillas – about half the entire planet’s population lives wild and free within the forest. However, other inhabitants include chimpanzees, baboons and eight other types of monkey, thirty-odd forest elephants, and six different species of antelopes, adding up to around 120 species of mammals in total. There are also around 350 different bird species and 220 butterfly, many being endemic to the area. There are over 1000 different species of flowering plants. Given the range and variety of natural life present, as well as the primeval nature of the forest, it is easy to understand why Bwindi has been declared not only a National Park by the Ugandan authorities, but also a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The park’s headquarters is up in the north-west at Buhoma. Even here, just outside the borders of the park plenty of wildlife can be seen – brilliant butterflies, bright golden weaver birds, hopping black and white wagtails and iridescent sunbirds. And if you can’t see them, you can certainly hear them all around. Even the local population of gorillas can often be found foraging outside the park boundaries.

My greatest exposure to the diversity of Bwindi’s wildlife came on the day I left. Woken by the yowling of a forest cat I met up with Laura who had been disturbed during the night by owls hunting from her banda’s roof. Our guide, Robert, arrived to drive us from Buhoma down to Lake Bunyonyi. The route taken skirted the northern fringes of the forest for some ninety kilometres, the road ploughing through the forest mid-way to Ruhija in an area known as ‘the Neck’. He popped the roof on the Landcruiser and passed back his copy of Stevenson & Fanshawe’s Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa (should you hire a guide and they do not have a copy of this book I would be extremely dubious!). Then we were off.

The road was in many places little more than an earthen track as the boughs of the forest closed over our heads. It hair-pinned as it climbed ever higher and higher towards Ruhija, from where we would have incredible cloud-scraping over the valleys and hillsides far below us. In many places the track devolved into deep patches of clay-red mud, rutted and ridged like the surrounding topography. The Landcruiser pitched and strained as Laura and I were tossed around like peas in a whistle. My seatbelt popped off several times, and once I was sure I was going to be hurled out my open window. This gave the journey a feel of real excitement. More exciting though was the wildlife we were fortunate enough to spot. Or, rather, that Robert was skilful enough to spot; despite keeping his eyes on the road he was always the first person to spot a new and intriguing creature for us to stop and investigate.

Before we had even entered the forest we had halted to investigate a mob of 35 grey crowned cranes in a field, a couple even pogoing with wings outspread in a mating dance for our entertainment. Once among the trees we saw cuckoos, brightly-coloured cinnamon-chested bee-eaters and even a couple of pin-tailed wydahs (small black and white fellows with berry-red bills and quite preposterously long ribbon-like tails streaming out behind them – an adult male has a body-length of 12cm, but has a 20cm long tail). After this avian appetiser we entered the realm of the primates. Red-tailed monkeys, with long dangling tails the same colour as the road, scampered up into the trees as we turned corners, and scruffy-looking L’Hoest’s monkeys judged us critically from under their white monobrows. Best of all though were the charismatic black and white colobus monkeys, leaping seemingly impossible distances from treetop to treetop, flying almost, their long tails tipped with white furry tufts streaming back behind them. I was so impressed by Robert’s quick eyes I felt like challenging him to spot a chameleon. I’m sad I didn’t – because he did then go on to spot a chameleon creeping across the road. He was a real beauty, jade green, around a foot long (larger than I thought they grew), swivel-eyed with three rhinoceros horns thrusting forwards. The little chap didn’t seem disturbed at being picked up – he even continued his stately progress up my arm, allowing me to see his feet in action, with two toes reaching forward and two back to grip whatever surface he found himself on. We carried him across the road and put him down into the vegetation.

We didn’t see any of the forest elephants that live down in the forest’s south-east, but we saw warning signs about them. We had tarried too long goggling at the wildlife however, and just as we neared the park’s exit gate a storm blew up. Well, it is a rain forest. The rain thundered down, turning what had been an enjoyable expedition along a muddy, pot-holed single-lane track skirting a hundred-metre sheer drop into a very nerve-wracking expedition along a muddy, pot-holed single-lane track skirting a hundred-metre sheer drop! I was ridiculously happy when we finally hit level ground and the first tarmac we had seen in 48 hours! But in the mean time, even without plunging deep into the heart of this primeval afromontane rainforest, I had been able to see the sort of wildlife that I had never been able to previously.
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