We're only traveling through southern Uganda, from Lake Victoria, through the lovely little Lake Mburo National Park to Queen Elizabeth National Park in the east. There, we follow the equator line, having already stood on this magical line a few thousand kilometers west in March 2024 in Congo Brazzaville. We ignore the 5,000-meter mountains, though – everything is clouded or hazy. The landscapes are still stunning.

We realize that if the world were different, it would be just a stone's throw via Sudan and Egypt to Italy. Crazy.

The country is apparently very popular with tourists and has the corresponding infrastructure. And that comes at a price. The Americans are driving it up with their "big spender" attitude, and tourism is encouraging children to beg.

In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, we're back in the jungle. Rainforest. Humid, green, damp thickets.

Getting a permit for gorilla trekking isn't easy. You can't just buy a permit as an individual; you have to go through an agency. And they're only allowed to accept credit card payments or money transfers because: You don't trust the agencies. Credit card payments seem to be only possible in Kampala, and bank transfers from Germany to Uganda are – of course – not possible at all. Ultimately, we find a way to pay in cash, and we spend two days nervously wondering whether the man we handed over a pile of US dollars to would actually come over with the permits. But it works.

We watch the gorillas very close. The individual families in the park have been habituated over the years, meaning they've become accustomed to the presence of humans. We're like other harmless jungle creatures and are completely ignored. Fascinating. And the gorillas seem like the biggest lazybones to us. Everything around them is edible, they constantly stuff their bellies, and even if they get into a fight, the next feeding break quickly follows. Every now and then, a gorilla rolls to the next feeding bush or plops down into lush greenery. We're allowed to watch the animals for an hour before heading back through the jungle.

Was it fun? Yes, absolutely. Was it worth the money? That's also because you could only get this experience for less in Central Africa, and we can't get there. Do we believe the claims that all this money goes back into conservation? No, not really.