The first encounter

After two hours of tracking through the dense jungle and climbing over two hill tops we found the group. Suddenly everyone and everything was very quiet. You can almost hear your own heart beat. We left the porters with the backpacks behind before the ranger took us closer to where the group was resting. Each group of gorilla is allowed an hour of visit per day and not more than 10 visitors per group. At first it was quite difficult to see them as there were not much light with the tall trees and vegetation. But once we adjusted to the environment we were then able to see them sitting around eating leaves and minding their own business. They don't seem to mind and seem oblivion to the fact that we were there. Once we are close enough, we start snapping and recording away with our cameras (no flash was allowed). We took every opportunity we have to "digitized" the important moments with these great apes. The most exciting moment was when I saw the gorilla with the white patch on its back. This is called the Silver Back. He is the leader of the group and can weight up to 200kg. Each group has at least one or the most two Silver Backs and one Black Back. They are the only males in the group, the rest are all females and infant.