{"id":185,"date":"2010-12-02T18:43:44","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T18:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2014-03-09T08:56:32","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T08:56:32","slug":"gorillas-day-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/2010\/12\/gorillas-day-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Gorillas, Day 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are between 700 to 800 mountain gorillas left on the planet.\u00a0 The Virunga Mountains is divided by 3 countries, Rwanda, Uganda and DRC and is the only place in the world where these fascinating creatures can be found.\u00a0 400 individuals reside on the Rwandan portion of the mountains and are divided into 18 family groups.\u00a0\u00a0Only\u00a08 of the groups can be visited by tourist, and they are visited only once a day for one hour and only by 8 people.\u00a0 \u00a0It is therefore a privilege to spend time with such a rare animal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps\u00a0“animal” is not the best word to us describe\u00a0the mountain gorillas\u00a0as they\u00a0share 98% of their genes\u00a0with humans and when watching their behaviour and mannerisms this is definitely evident.\u00a0\u00a0 To describe the feeling of sitting within meters of gorillas is hard to explain, and I\u00a0use the term “meters” very\u00a0loosely.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let me explain. . . . .\u00a0\u00a0it is said that you cannot get any closer to the gorillas than 7 meters.\u00a0\u00a0 100cm\u00a0=1 meter so 7 meter would be 700cm, right?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well when a mountain gorilla pushes you out of the way with its hand that is not 7 meters!\u00a0 There is no limit!\u00a0\u00a0 If gorillas get close they get real close and having a 230kg silver back gorilla within centre meters of you is an experience you will not forget!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Going back to the feeling?\u00a0 I saw mountain gorillas 15 years ago and I still get shivers down my spine when I think about that first time as I peered through a bamboo forest within these prehistoric Virunga Mountains and saw a mountain gorilla staring into my eyes.\u00a0 When a 200kg gorilla welcomes you into his family and accepts your presence with a stare and then ignores you, you feel insignificant. You\"\"<\/a> have the feeling that this beast can crush you with one hand at any time and he knows how feeble we are and treats us with contempt, as if we are not even worth a minute of his time.\u00a0 He rolls over and allows one of his girls to remove fleas from his fur and doesn\u2019t even acknowledge you again.\u00a0 That arrogance puts you in your place and lets you know who is boss.\u00a0 A silver back mountain gorilla is truly the king of the jungle and doesn\u2019t he know it!\u00a0\u00a0 Our success rate on that day was 100%, everyone saw the gorillas.\u00a0 We abided by that \u20187 meters\u2019 rule, But as\u00a0gorillas cannot measure 7 meters they got closer and a great day was had by all.\u00a0\u00a0 Even with the trekking, mud, and stinging nettles the word best used to describe the day was \u2018awesome\u2019.<\/p>\n

No one wore the chain of shame today, it was too good of a day and besides I am not sure the gorillas would have appreciated the “bling”.<\/p>\n

Tip of the day<\/strong><\/em>: You cannot stop your jaw from dropping when you first see mountain gorillas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are between 700 to 800 mountain gorillas left on the planet.\u00a0 The Virunga Mountains is divided by 3 countries, Rwanda, Uganda and DRC and is the only place in the world where these fascinating creatures can be found.\u00a0 400 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[558,560,19,339,561,559,562],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14th-nov-2010-absolute-safari-on-shaggy-denis","tag-700-to-800-mountain-gorillas-left-on-the-planet","tag-a-silver-back-mountain-gorilla","tag-african-holiday","tag-gorillas","tag-king-of-the-jungle","tag-the-virunga-mountains","tag-you-cannot-stop-your-jaw-from-dropping-when-you-first-see-mountain-gorillas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}