Chimpanzee Tracking (9/29)

We headed to Kibale bright and early this morning to go Chimpanzee Tracking.  Kibale is about an hour and a half north of Kasese (right outside Fort Portal).  Samson, our driver, was running a little late this morning so we were racing to try and make the 8 am tracking.  Unfortunately, we arrived at about 8:30 am and missed the first group.  So we kicked dirt for a couple minutes and then decided to make the half hour drive back to Fort Portal to do some shopping and eat an early lunch (we planned to do this after the tracking), and then we would go back to Kibale for the 1:30 tracking. 

Rwenzori View Guest House Craft Shop

Our first stop back in Fort Portal was to the Rwenzori View Guest House Craft Shop.  Katie actually has a connection to this craft shop.  Her mom has a fair trade store in Fond du Lac, and at her store they sell baskets that are also sold at this store.  The baskets are made by the Women’s Rwenzori Mountain Group and then the woman who owns the Rwenzori View Guest House Craft Store (a Dutch woman) buys the baskets from them and sells them in her shop as well as to fair trade stores.  So for this reason we made an extra effort to go here, but we were sure glad we did because their stuff was beautiful!  The baskets were so unique and everything there was of very high quality.  So we made quite a few purchases here. 

We then went back to one of the craft shops that we were at the weekend before and picked up a few things that we decided we wanted more of.  And then we went to Glupot to order our pizza that we had been thinking about since last weekend and they were closed! They said they didn’t open until 12:30, but we had to be back on the road by then to make our 1:30 chimp tracking.  As we were wandering around grumpily looking for a place to eat, we ran into two Americans who were super friendly (not always the case here), and they directed us to another American eatery in town.  We were relieved, as we had been looking forward to some more American-ish food.  We ended up ordering cheeseburgers and chips.  We were satisfied. 

Then we were back on the road heading to Kibale.  We made it with plenty of time for our excursion, which was a relief.  We had a briefing before we left where they told us to tuck our pants into our socks because of biting ants, that we must remain 8 meters away from the chimps and turn our flashes off, and that if our tour guide hears an elephant she will shoot a scare shot up in the air. Okay, we are ready to go.  We hopped in a van and it dropped us off in the middle of the jungle.  And off we went.  We walked for about 15 minutes before we saw the first chimpanzee.  The way the tracking works is that you walk through the jungle on a path until you see a chimp, and as soon as you see a chimp you follow it.  So you deviate from the path and you are trekking through the jungle.  So you are climbing, jumping, leaping, over, under, through, and around branches, trees, vines, plants, etc.  I should also note that Jessica, our tour guide, was hardcore.  There was one point where we were almost running through the jungle chasing the chimps.  This made it super fun, but also quite the work out.  At the end of the day we ended up seeing about 8 chimpanzees, 2 of which we were able to get within that 8-meter distance.  We were a little disappointed because we expected to see more.  The reason that we didn’t see a lot today, according to Jessica, is because it had just rained the day before and when it rains the chimps like to stay up in the trees.  Despite being a little let down on our chimp sightings, the jungle walk was incredible.  There were so many butterflies as we walked through.  At several points it felt like we were at the Milwaukee Public Museum in the butterfly exhibit, but only better because it was completely natural!  We also saw elephant tracks along the way, which were pretty cool too.  In fact, one of the men in our group fell into the track! 

Baboons we saw on our way to Kibale National Park

The first chimp we saw and got closest to

A couple chimps hanging out

Elephant tracks

Beautiful jungle

Walking through the jungle.
Still on the path at this point.
Quite the outfit!

Beautiful butterflies!

Jessica, our hardcore guide

Tea leaves we passed on the way home!

Well, it wouldn’t be an adventure if the ants didn’t bite someone.  Can you guess who lucked out between Katie and I?  Yep, I had bites all over my legs and arms.  I’m not really sure how or why because I tucked my pants into my socks like they suggested and they remained in there the entire time, but somehow they got me.  I didn’t experience the pain that is often associated with the bites, but I sure did itch!  I am just about recovered from the bites a week later.