Today was slightly different as we would be spending time
with the rest of the wildlife in the forest.
Ian was still pretty worn out after yesterday and at breakfast decided he
would stay behind at the lodge for the day and rest up. But Olly persuaded him
that it would be an easy day; just wandering along an open forest track until we reached
some waterfalls which were on 3 levels and that we could just go as far as we
wanted before turning back at any time.
Because Gerald was away with Charmaine and Frederick doing the Gorilla
habituation, the lodge was supposed to be transporting us to the National Park
gate which was about 1 mile away, however after hanging around at the top of the drive for almost an hour our lift still hadn’t materialized and Olly was getting more and more frustrated with
the lodge’s excuses and decided we should walk it. I said “No” if we had to walk then Ian and I
would prefer to go back to our room and spend the day around the lodge grounds,
as poor Ian would have been exhausted by the time we reached the gate. As Olly was trying to sort it all out, with
phone calls back and forth to Gerald who in turn was speaking with the lodge, we
noticed some damage to a banana plantation across the valley. As we stood watching, we spotted a silverback
walking through the vegetation and then as it neared the rainforest another
four were spotted in his troop.
I was pleased enough to get these couple of photos of village children.
I think the expression on his face shows just how heavy his load is.
Brugmansia sp. which we've now seen growing in most parts of the world.
I just liked the way the light was on these ferns.
I think this is a form of Impatiens
We spent an age watching this bird gathering nest material and the light on the path was pretty poor so it took me a lot of attempts to get a decent shot. Although Olly was keeping a record of what we saw I haven't yet been able to identify these birds.
Finally, a decent shot.
This ant's nest was huge
Olly saving some little creature from certain drowning. He's actually proving to be a very good guide, if a little (lot) bird orientated, but he's a nice guy and good company.
His knowledge of, and interest in, plants though is zero, so I've given up asking for IDs.
This beautiful insect is a Sternotomis variabilis (Lesser Jewel Longhorn Beetle). I spent a futile age chasing it up and down a horizontal branch in an effort to get head-on shot.
Froghopper of some kind.
The structure of this fern reminded me of a stylised Christmas Tree - just imagine baubles hanging from the ends of each leaflet.
Then we came across a troop of about 12 of these delightful Red-tailed Monkeys - the photos are pretty poor but in my defence so was the lighting in the canopy.
I hadn't appreciated at the time just how cute they were and it's rather amusing that they are named purely after their tails, whereas the adorable facial features are totally ignored.
I don't know if these are the same type of ant that made the huge nest we saw earlier, but given the size of the egg they're carrying and the massive queen in the second picture they could well be.
One of the two armed guards assigned to us for the walk, I'm sure half of him is listening out for rampaging forest elephants.
There were loads of butterflies around.
Gregori's Brown Pansy.
Unidentified Dragonfly
Dentate bush brown posing beautifully on our local guide Solomon's head.
Brown-patch Ceres Forester
On the track we noticed a whole host of different ones in a feeding frenzy, whether it was a particular mineral they were getting from the stones, or some animal had left a particularly nutritious poo we don't know.
African Map
Blue Mother of Pearl
Forest Dotted Border
By now we'd been on the track about 4 hours and still hadn't reached the first waterfall. Ian was getting tired and we thought of turning back, but Olly and Solomon assured us we were very close now but what they hadn't communicated properly was that the track didn't actually lead to the falls, we had to turn off it and clamber through the slippery jungle one more. Anyway we got there and to be honest were totally underwhelmed at the scale of the falls (mind you it'd take a lot to beat Iguassu Falls!)
We sat down on wet logs to eat our packed lunches and whilst we were doing so along walked Omax, our chief ranger from yesterday, who was leading a single client.
Olly and other Ian were keen to walk up to the next waterfall and on the basis I was only here once I agreed to join them. Ian was happy to sit and wait and so I borrowed his very useful walking pole and left my camera gear behind taking only my phone. The next level wasn't any more spectacular than the first although other Ian and Olly spent quite a long time taking photos.
On the way back down the narrow path most bizarre thing occurred; a group of 50 plus school children passed us, all wearing uniform to a greater or lesser extent and most of the girls had lovely white socks and shiny shoes. Given the mud around I dread to think what state they came home in.
When I got back to Ian, he'd had a long chat with their Pastor/Schoolmaster and apparently it wasn't an actual school trip but the kids had elected to go and visit the falls as part of a geographical project.
Ian and I then firmly stated our wish to go back to the lodge and so we all headed back to the main track. Once there Olly, Solomon and other Ian continued on and the armed guard with the better command of English was assigned to accompany us. It was only about a mile back to the main gate but 2/3rds of the way along it started to rain and quite heavily before long. We'd taken our waterproof jackets with us but these proved to not be as waterproof as we'd thought and we were soon both feeling a little soggy. Luckily we got back to the main entrance before the really torrential rain started and waited in the dry until someone came to take us back to the lodge.
When we caught up with Olly and other Ian at dinner we learned that they had got absolutely soaked to the skin!
I read on the internet that it was the lodge's policy to offer a shoe cleaning service and was surprised that ours hadn't been cleaned last night, so today I asked and sure enough they came back about an hour considerably muddier than they started off.