Gorilla Trekking : Mountain gorilla trekking vs mountain gorilla habituation . Anything to do with mountain gorillas is exciting just at the mention of it. Its more than just the thrill of knowing you’re going to be in the presence of the mighty apes, it’s the whole journey from the city to the gorilla park, to the briefing, then entering the forest, seeing the gorillas and exiting the forest. It’s an experience for a life time. One to remember always and forever.
But well as excited as trekkers are always most of them at the time of booking will ask of the two mountain gorilla trekking and mountain gorilla habituation which is better. In this article we detail the similarities and differences in both activities and we leave you to be the judge of what is better or what is not.
Mountain gorilla trekking and mountain gorilla habituation are both experiences to see gorillas. In mountain gorilla trekking you trek the forest and when you find the gorillas you will spend with them an hour and then depart the forest. Mountain gorilla habituation on the other hand you trek the forest and when you find the gorillas you spend more than just an hour with them.
For gorillas to be trekked they have to be habituated so mountain gorilla habituation is the art and science of familiarising the gorillas with people or human presence in preparation for them being a trek able gorilla family. So gorillas that are habituated are usually not used to be and are fearful in rare cases hostile. during the habituation progress the humans help them get used to the human presence
Gorilla that are seen on a mountain gorilla trekking experience are already habituated and quite used to people presence that’s why you will only spend an hour in their presence. Plus the gorillas that are trekked are not running away or hostile.
The rules of both Mountain gorilla trekking and mountain gorilla habituation are the same nothing changes really and they include:- not trekking while you are ill, trek only if you are 15 and over, do not use flash photography, do not touch the gorillas, do not feed the gorillas, keep at least a 7 m distance between you and the gorillas, do not engage in anything that may cause harm to the gorillas and the gorilla habitat, do not cough or squeeze into the gorillas or in front of the gorillas; among other rules. The rules are usually communicated at the briefing and even prior to the trekking experience.
In Mountain gorilla trekking; the trekking group of eight people is led by a trekking guide or ranger who is coordinating with another ranger to take the trekkers where a particular habituated family is at the moment. On the hand during mountain gorilla habituation the trekker group of usually 5 or 6 definitely less than 8, will be led by a ranger who tracks the different gorilla families until you find them. Usually the people who go for habituation are animal scholars, primatologists and different officials. So they are quite few and very keen on different aspects of the gorillas and the entire trek.
All mountain gorillas usually in deep areas of the forest so it takes a while to get to them and for those being habituated, it really takes a while to get to them because they are in hiding from people unlike the ones trekked that are already used to people presence.
Talking about cost, mountain gorilla trekking is less pricing costing 300,000 Ugx for Ugandan, USD 500 for Africans, USD 700 for foreign residents and USD 800 for foreign non-residents. On the other mountain gorilla habituation costs 750,000 Ugx for Ugandan and EAC, USD 1000 for Africans, USD 1000 for foreign residents and USD 1500 for foreign non-residents
