The transfer to Bwindi in the far southwest is long. Terraced hills, banana plots, the road climbing into the mist. The forest itself rears up dark and dense at the end of it, and you understand the name before you've taken a step. We turned in early; the trek brief was at dawn.

Three hours up through mud and roots, a porter hauling me over the worst of it, and then the trackers stopped and there they were. A silverback and his family, feeding, the babies tumbling. One hour, timed to the minute, a few metres away. I forgot to take photos for the first ten of it.

We'd booked a second permit, and it paid off. A different gorilla family, an easier walk, and the strange privilege of a second hour in their company. Twice is greedy and twice is right; the cost is real but you do not come all this way and ration it.

The flight back to Entebbe and a last look at Lake Victoria, vast and flat and silver, the fishing boats out on it. After the intensity of the forest, the calm of the lakeshore was the right note to leave on. And the gorillas stayed with me the whole flight home.