One good thing about being at this lodge is that we are literally minutes from the National Park gate, nevertheless we still seemed to be the last people arriving. As at Bwindi there were locals performing a dance for us and these were considerably more enthusiastic.
Considering that English as been an official language of Uganda since 1962 and that this is a government owned project, I was amused by the number of spelling mistakes in this poster.
We then had a similar lecture about the Dos and Don'ts of Chimpanzee trekking which were broadly similar to those about Gorillas. Having been told that we were to wear masks whenever we were in the vicinity of the animals I thought it was hilarious when someone (American!) asked during the Q & A whether they should avoid bearing their teeth at male chimps as he'd read it can be confrontational. To give the head ranger his due he was far less sarcastic than I would have been. We were then called up in groups and introduced to our trekker and, once again, ours was the last group to be called - I think Olly's getting a bit of a complex. But it worked well for us as we had the chief trekker, Jasper, who'd done the presentation as our leader and his English was excellent.
Whilst the terrain was considerably easier than the gorilla trek in that it was mostly flat, it was nevertheless extremely difficult as we were following the animals through primary jungle and often ignoring the paths. This was our first sighting of our troop.
Obviously they can go at great speed, either jumping through the trees or running along the undergrowth and it was incredible difficult to keep up. I also rather felt that we were chasing them but when I expressed this to Jasper he assured me it was not the case, they were merely doing their morning exercise (he must have thought I was a gullible Yank!)
Photography was, for me and my equipment/abilities, nigh on impossible. When they did have the decency to stop for a second, the autofocus on my camera would settle on a leaf instead of an eye as it was supposed to. We were also in the jungle and so my glasses steamed up constantly so I could see nothing through the view finder and I ended up getting a bit upset as all I could hear around me was "yep, got that shot" from Olly, other Ian and Frederick. With Ian giving me a running commentary on how and where this chimp was moving I was able to get these shots, which are two of the better ones.
This is what I got when the troop decided to descend from the trees - the others got the animals' faces, all I managed was hands and trunk.
I was so frustrated I'm sorry to say the tears started to flow but Olly was really understanding and sweet; he said even he was struggling (probably a white lie) and gave me a big cuddle. He then had a chat with Jasper who asked us all if we'd prefer animals in the canopy or on the ground. I wasn't the only one to select on the ground and so we headed off to find a trio of older males who were reliably sedentary. On the way we came across this researcher taking poo samples; she explained how the general health of the animal could be assessed as well as what they'd recently eaten.
5 mins or so later we came to the bachelor troop sitting quietly on the path.
This one absolutely cracked me up, I think he must be the chimp equivalent of a soft porn star!
You can tell they're elderly by the grey hairs.
Their hands show just how close to them we are in terms of DNA - I think one of them even bites it's nails like me.
I have many more bad photos I could add but there doesn't seem much point so I'm going to end my chimp pics with the one that I really like and printed large in my latest coffee table book looks fabulous.
We'd all had more than enough when our time was up and were content to head back to the NP HQ. On the way sharp eyed Olly noticed this - absolutely no idea what it is though!
Crossing a small steam we heard some croaking and found this little chap
Back at HQ we were presented with our Trekking Certificates.
In the small gift shop Olly was trying to buy a T-Shirt but strangely they didn't take Shillings so we offered to lend him some US$ knowing full well he'd probably forget by the end of the holiday but we were happy to knock it off the tip we'd planned to give him at the end of the holiday. He was very grateful and very pleased to send a photo to his new partner Jennifer.