Day 10, Part 1: In the Northern Heights

We were up at the crack of dawn (actually, before dawn... no birds were singing yet), dressed in our warm Patagonia gear, ready to eat a quick breakfast and experience the gorillas.

First we drove, in the cold grey morning, to the meeting place of gorilla tourists.
Then we were divvied up into gorilla groups - 8 people per group, 7 groups total, with 1 guide, 2 porters, and 2 soldiers per group. We ended up in the "shorter trek" group (not by choice, just by chance). After waiting for our guide to verify the position of our gorilla family with the trackers who spent the night in the mountains, we hopped into cars again and rode for 30 minutes into a remote village area.
We got out of the cars and began the upward trek. The pictures that follow are the people and places we met and saw on our way up to the forest.



These people were destitute subsistence farmers. The fertile land was terraced all the way up to the stone wall separating the forest from the farmland. The air was cold, the huts were mud, and the children were bright and friendly. But they were very poor.

Finally, pausing for breath in the high altitude, we reached the outer part of the forest. The stone wall sliced the wild from the cultivated. We left the people - and the many, many children - behind.