June 30, 2023 - The day all of us were looking forward to was finally here. We were going to see mountain gorillas. This was my second visit to Bwindi to see gorillas, but it felt like the first. The feeling of being around these great animals is so hard to explain, but I will try.

We set off into the mountains at 7am, all of us anxious and hopeful. Last year, the hike was all uphill to get to where the gorillas were. This year, it was all downhill. I loved that. Of course, it didn't mean it would be any easier. We still had to hack our way through the thick forest vegetation. There are no roads or trails in the rainforest. There is the occasional game trail that has been carved out by forest elephants, but other than that, we had to cut our own trail.

We hiked and hiked and hiked.

Three hours in, and still no signs of gorillas. All of us were exhausted, except Zach, but he is not well (lol). Finally, our guides made contact with the scouts that had set out at 6am to find the gorillas for us. They found the family we were looking for. The gorillas were nearby!

Our fatigue from the past three hours was quickly forgotten, and our energy renewed. The rush and excitement of seeing a mountain gorilla got us all fired up. We quickened our pace and kept on working our way through the bush. Finally, our guides stopped pushing forward and called us all over to them. There, sitting in the brush, was a gorilla.

It was a big female, she was so beautiful. She pulled a branch down and began eating the leaves off of it. We watched her in awe. Suddenly the forest came alive around us. We were surrounded by the gorillas. We couldn't see them because the vegetation was so thick, but we could hear them and occasionally see the brush moving.

They slowly started coming out of the bushes and walking around. One of them laid down nearby, and another walked over and started grooming it. The smiles on everyone's faces were priceless. This is what it is all about. Moments like this are what all of us live for.

I snapped away. Image after image. Occasionally putting my camera down to watch them interact. It was magic. There were baby gorillas playing and rolling around clumsily. A huge silverback was nearby, watching over the family. He was acting shy so we didn’t get any great images of him.

When you realize there are only a thousand mountain gorillas left in the world, seeing just one in the wild is truly a privilege. I looked around; we had a family of eleven gorillas around us.

I was in heaven.

There was a female in front of me eating, I kneeled down and started taking pictures of her. She stopped eating and sat there, watching me photograph her. Maybe it was the sound of my shutter that caught her attention, I am not sure. All I know is I stopped shooting to look back at her, and felt this rush of adrenaline, because I knew she was looking right at me. I was filled with so much love for this moment.

She got up and walked towards me. Our guide told me to calmly move out of her way. I rolled out of the way as she passed by me. She was inches away from me. I was on fire and wanted to just sit there and soak up that moment. But our time with the gorillas was almost up, so I quickly got up and went over to another gorilla and kept shooting…