I'll spare you details, but note to self: avoid the hotel buffet. Especially the night before a once-in-a-lifetime mountain gorilla trek.

Ten hours in the backseat of a jeep across Uganda's rolling landscape. From Kampala, we wind through countless villages of the Buganda kingdom, pass the Equator, before rising into the highlands of volcano country. The topography is noticeably more dramatic here. We're still in Uganda, but a stone's throw from the border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — an intersection marked by Mount Sabyinyo, a delicate ombré presence that floats over the landscape like a Japanese ink wash painting.

The dirt road drops us to the shoreline of Lake Mutanda. It's sublimely beautiful. It's also the portal to mountain gorilla treks in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, one of three places in the world where one can hike to habituated mountain gorilla families (the other two Rwanda and DRC).

With a booking made months in advance and a bit of lottery luck, we've secured our permits through Gorilla Link Tours. Now, a night at the serene Mutanda Lake Resort to pull myself and my gastrointestinal tract together before the primate encounter of a lifetime.