It was going to be the single biggest expense of my travel life, past or future. I was near the end of a 6-month sojourn around the globe, transformed and unleashed in body and spirit, anointed with a vow to no longer delay my deepest dreams. I had safaried, hiked and camped out in Kenya and Uganda for 5 weeks, but this last adventure would be beyond anything I had experienced yet:

One hour in the proximity of mountain gorillas, in a misty rainforest aptly named the ‘Bwindi Impenetrable Forest’.

One hour, for $600.

For a shoe-string backpacker who eats once a day and only travels by night-bus to save accommodation costs, this was a fairly astronomical sum; but I felt assured this money was going to a cause I desperately supported, and the experience before me was far more important than financial worries of the future.
(As it turns out, the price may have actually been artificially-inflated by the suggestion of American billionaire Warren Buffet, based on the very American assumption that if you make something very expensive more people will want it).

Now, to get there…
I had spent the past five or six days camping alongside a many-fingered lake named Bunyoni, canoeing around in a small dugout, listening to the music of colorful birds above, and watching patterns of ripples on the surface. My 6-month journey through Asia and Africa had also been a spiral journey within, guided by the wisdom I had found in Daosim- above all the appreciation for a great Flow of life that none of us control, but can only experience as truly as possible. No matter where I had been on my trip, every single day I would see a leaf or flower detach from its branch and float gracefully down to earth below. Let go, they all reminded me. Getting from Lake Bunyoni to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was going to severely test all of that peaceful detachment.

Backpacking across Kenya and Uganda was a much different challenge from everywhere I had been thus far; most of the tourist industry is geared towards the more wealthy travelers who hire drivers and guides to usher them around the countryside. After more than a month of going my own way, I had mostly gotten the hang of shared transportation here- the locals had to have a way to cheaply move around, I told myself. It was far more organic and intuitive than the strictly regulated systems of the West, but in some ways it was more reliable; if all else failed, I would just go to the side of the road and wait for a van or SUV headed the same direction.

I started from Bunyoni with a nice 2-hour dawn hike to the nearby city, then found a large open lot next to the main road in and out of town. This is where all the various means of transportation hung out waiting for passengers- motorbikes, taxis, trucks, mini-vans, or cheap cars that don’t convey a lot of confidence. Of course this was the only one that would take me where I needed to go, so I hopped in to a 5-seat car along with 4 other people…and then waited for a fifth, sixth, and seventh passenger to eventually squeeze in. I had about one half of a butt-cheek actually on a seat, but no matter. Here we go.

About an hour in, we slowed to a stop near a cluster of teens on motorbikes; without a word, three people got out and hopped on the back of motorbikes. We then continued as a little convoy, into a security checkpoint a few hundred yards around a corner. The police looked inside the car, saw that we had the legal number of passengers, and waved us on through; a few hundred yards later, we stopped again, the three extra people climbed back in, and away we went. I couldn’t help but laugh, amazed at how it had all worked like clockwork without any discussion. This was just their flow.

Another hour or two later I was dropped off at the start of a small dirt road, the only path that would lead all the way to the rainforest in the heart of the mountains. There was one teenager waiting here on his motorbike, ready for a fare. His name was Michael and he smiled reassuringly at me: he had grown up on this bike, he seemed to intimate. If I didn’t believe it then, I would fully believe it two hours later.

Two hours of slip-sliding up and down muddy hillsides, of hopping off to help push to hilltops and lifting our feet up to cross dangerously deep waters. Two hours of squeezing the seat beneath me with all the might I had, of imagining what I would do if we got stuck- and two hours of children joyfully chasing behind us, of women laughing at the sight of this strange white boy riding by, of beautiful vistas and rural nature. As crazy as the ride was, we were still never far from human society; Uganda is one of the most densely-populated rural regions in the world, as well as one of the most entrepreneurial societies. This slip and slide adventure was just daily existence for many, many people; though my hands never stopped clenching the bike, my heart softened throughout. What a joy this life is.

We arrived safe and sound, of course, at a place I had booked right outside the forest. After I bid Michael adieu with all the gratitude in my soul, I had a few late afternoon hours to relish rainforest life. My little cabin sat on the edge of a hill, overlooking the shrouded green expanse of Bwindi as far as the eye could see- which was not far. Mist was a permanent fixture of the landscape here, whether it rose amongst the trees, descended from above or rolled over mountaintops. I sat still and watched the moisture theater unfold before me; patchy sunlight gave way to darkened skies, droplets condensed into rain clouds and showers blessed the landscape before the air cleared again for one last glimpse of sun as evening took the stage. The players of this drama cycled through for a moment in the spotlight, disappearing backstage when it was someone else’s turn. A troop of monkeys emerged at forest’s edge to forage and play, a flood of eagles soared overhead. Flycatchers dove and spun like fighter pilots after their winged prey, and then gathered tightly on a thin branch to escape the rain before flying back out for a twilight snack.

This was my happy place, my heaven. I was but one small creature in a dazzling menagerie, nourished by abundant light and water. This was as life should be, diverse and wild and magically tangible. I didn’t want to move, I didn’t want to sleep; I just wanted to soak in every detail.

But the next day was the day I had waited for, and I was mentally preparing myself for an arduous trek and the adventure of a lifetime. I slept somehow peacefully and fitfully, in love with the moment and overcome with anticipation for the next.

I set out on foot the next morning for park headquarters, where everyone with a ticket for the day was to assemble for orientation. There was a large crowd there, 30 or so tourists and their collection of drivers and tour guides. They were abuzz with stories of their own adventures to this spot- apparently somebody’s SUV had even failed to produce air conditioning for some period of time. I could smell body spray and conditioner and new trekking gear and felt that I couldn’t get back into the rainforest soon enough.

There was also one man who held us all spellbound with his story from the previous day; he was a wealthy veterinarian from the States who was doing four or five days of these treks in a row, and yesterday his group had hiked for hours through rainstorms and hardships to get to their gorilla family. Once there, the gorillas had been standoffish, the alpha male even coming out to take a swing at their forest ranger. Of course this excited me: it was the stress and exertion that makes these moments special, and I wanted the most arduous trek possible. I was ready.

After a short talk, the rangers split us up into groups. Well, everyone but me; they had apparently divided us via tour guides and drivers, and I was the only one present without either. They were either upset or flummoxed that I would show up without one, and added me on to the largest group as we left. I looked around at the body types and ages of those in my group, and began to doubt whether we would all manage a long, rough hike into the jungle; no worries, I thought to myself. Even just an hour of walking through this primeval forest was going to be a-

The rangers stopped.

A young gorilla shifted his weight on top of the tree in front of us.

We had arrived.

It had been 10 minutes, I had yet to even break a sweat. All of my action-adventure fantasies had evaporated. That was it??

And in a second all of that flashed away.

One of the largest, most rare primates in the world was sitting on a tree limb above me, back slightly hunched. He munched on something nonchalantly, just another leafy breakfast. He farted.

I had seen monkeys in the wild, large and small; from that first instant I was transfixed by the surreal sight of them using their fingers with such dexterity, inhabiting their environment in such a similar way to us humans. But this, this was something totally different. This was an animal that shared 98% of my DNA; 98% of the way my body works, of the way I perceive the world. In the entire biological tree of life, the differences between us were practically negligible.

Yet these numbers weren’t in my head at that moment, none of the scientific research or archaeological history. The look on his face said it all; intelligent, alert, emotionally aware, all without obvious effort. As we moved closer under the bough of a giant tree, the rest of the family came into focus and his adolescence became more clear. There was another adolescent and two adults up there with him, and the most massive male I had ever seen on the ground underneath.

They paid us absolutely no mind at first; they maneuvered the web of branches with grace, feet and hands equally adept at gripping the bark. They would sometimes pick at each other, playfully and tenderly; but they mostly picked out the best leaves and pieces of bark, gathering a meal with calm and ease.

And a lot of gas; adult males can eat something like 30 kg a day, and, well, what goes in must come out. In a way, though, it was beautiful how natural it was to their process, how it was only the humans below who sniggered or gasped.

The male sat for a long time, looking the other direction, but when he decided to grab a bite for himself his mass was displayed in full splendor. His family glided around the tree above; he stood up, silver mid-section glistening with dew, grabbed hold of a large branch and tore the whole thing down like it was a twig. Leaves and debris continued to float to his head as he began to consume his own meal. It was perhaps the most casual display of strength I’ve ever beheld.

After a time, and without a sound, the family began to descend from their nightly nest. One of the adults crashed to the ground as directly as possible; another adult moved with more care, and as she reached the earth we saw for the first time an infant hanging on to her back as tightly as I rode Michael’s motorbike. Our smiles grew even more wide and there was a fresh cascade of camera clicks- which were interrupted by shouts from the rangers as the adolescent male came tearing down the path right next to us, trying to steal a bag. One of the rangers instinctively snatched the backpack at the last second and the young gorilla galloped by with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

We were there, sharing that space together for an eternal hour, us 17 primates. There are a little over 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the wild, located in only one other area outside this forest. 6 of them were with me in that moment, treating me like any other creature of the forest. I knew with every fiber of my being that this was a peak experience of my life, an hour that would live inside me like a bamboo shoot for the rest of my days. Something like this may never happen again for me, either because I can not manage it or…sadly more likely, we may not be able to share this planet with such magnificent wild animals for much longer. There are villages right outside this ‘remote forest’; every passing year wildlife habitat loss continues, through outright destruction or pollution and degradation. We are literally in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth, and this one is directly caused by us humans and not an asteroid or geological shift. One species, whose hunger for control and luxury is wiping out the bio-diversity of our home and paradoxically bringing us closer to our own possible demise via climactic shifts or, say, a virus that would typically have to go through a buffer zone of more species…

Yet none of that impending doom clouded me on this day. The gorilla family began to troop down the mountainside, on to the next meal. The mother and infant sauntered by so close I could see the individual droplets of water on their hair, and every crease and dot on their completely unique noses. They paid little attention to our group of rather hairless primates, completely at home in this verdant, wild habitat. Six of the last members of this incredible species.

The humans stirred, ready to leave. I felt intensely grateful that everyone had remained mostly quiet throughout the experience; we all took our photos of course, and the rangers pointed out a few details. For long stretches, though, it was only the sound of the rainforest and those who call it home- slow water drip, sonorous bird calls, insect chatter. And gorilla farts.

I was the last to leave, as reluctant as I felt I could get away with. The large male and infant-saddled mother stood together, peering out into the mist. Every shade of green glimmered in the backdrop, just as alive as we all felt. Millions of years ago, our common primate ancestor peered into a similar rainforest, caring for their family in much the same manner we do. Evolutionary life separated us and brought us back together in numerous ways over the ages, and somehow I had become a part of this great web of existence. I felt intensely alive, intensely aware, intensely connected to every element and breath. A piece of this tapestry, not master of it. Just another primate in a magical world.