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Day 5 - Wednesday 25th June
So far our driving days have been long, and today is no exception. We rose to a 4am alarm, and a 5am departure.
As I mentioned yesterday, we stayed at this cute lodge called Red Chilli, on the outskirts of Kampala - Uganda's capital city. We stayed in dorms last night so we didn't have to put the tents down so early this morning which was nice, but I hardly got any sleep, as it was too hot, and I had convinced myself I was getting bed bugs. Dinner was late (but delicious) and then we tried to make good use of wifi, so really didn't get too much sleep.
We have an early wake up this morning as we are off to Kibale Forest National Park, where we will be staying for 2 nights, and doing our Chimpanzee Trek. Our permits are split over 2 days, with one of the groups trekking today at 2pm, which is why we needed to make good time.
We begin our dark and sleepy drive through Kampala City (which we didn't get much of a chance to see) with most of us still sound asleep.
As we pass through the Ugandan mountains, the outlook is a mixture of banana trees and Tea Plantations. I've never seen Tea Plantations before, but they are so well manicured and a nice sight as the workers are out with their baskets on their heads and back - a bit cliche, but cool to see none the less.
Whilst our drive is long, it's still certainly entertaining, as we have the table booth seats again, and this time sitting with Helen and Tracey, 2 Aussie ladies we have become quite buddy buddy with. The topics are broad, and the laughs are hard, so we've decided to now call it 'The Tracey Everson Show', as her life seems to be full of so many hilarious adventures and misfortunes.
We eventually arrive at the beautiful Chimpanzee Camp in Kibale, which is perched atop a mountain with the most beautiful view of the surrounding tea plantations and maize crops. The camp is filled with nice gardens and flowers, terraced lawn for us to set up camp, a camp kitchen rotunda and a bar. It's such a serene and relaxed place with lots of pretty coloured (non terrifying) birds.
We arrive around 1130am just in time to pitch our tents and organise lunch - which was bread rolls with salads and coleslaw, as well as some left over rice and spaghetti from the night before. Our cook Juma is so good, the food is always so fresh and tasty, but also manages to reuse and not waste any food. Way more imaginative than me in the kitchen anyway - don't think I've eaten this many veges in years!
After lunch we organise ourselves as 5 of the group head off to Kibale NP for their Chimp Trek, and most of us remaining head off on a Village Walk led by Iggy, one of the workers/guides here at Chimpanzee Camp.
We begin our walk through the tea plantations owned by our camp and Iggy explains the process of how the Tea leaves are harvested. He explains that it's a year round job, and most workers are paid about 65-73 Ugandan Schillings (UGS) p/kilo, and most workers will pick from anywhere between 70-100 kilos a day (avg 6-8 hours). To put that into perspective, their wage is around US$3-4 a day. Pretty hard work for very little.
I wouldn't have guessed it, but Uganda's main source of export is Tea, Coffee and Cotton, and surprisingly, their major export Tea, is sent to India. So perhaps it is re-mixed and rebranded there, and sent on to other countries.
Our walk takes us through Forest and over creeks, where Iggy explains how the members of the local communities still use particular plants for herbal remedies and medicines. He shows us the Malaria Tree, which it's leaves are said to cure Malaria within 3 days, but can also cause abortion - Pretty powerful leaves!
We walk into a local community, where the homes are very spread apart from each other, but surrounded by their crops. This local community lives pretty basically. The walls of their homes are made of bamboo and mud, with either thatched or tin roofing. The families are nice and we try to be as polite as possible by learning a few words like "Agundi" (greeting/how are you), "Neeje" (reply/good) and "MuayBale" (thank you) ... We still all sounded very foreign. I asked Iggy how they felt about us standing there in their homes and pretty much staring (as I feel rude not being able to communicate and interact), but he says they like us because we smile and are kind. It's nice that a smile and a wave is universal.
As we continue on through the community, we seem to be accumulating kids who are following us yelling "mazungu" (wanderer ie. white people) to all their friends. Some of these kids walked a good half hour with us, barefoot and some with even littler kids on their backs, just staring - Very funny to see. Apparently after we leave, they ask Iggy what it is we eat to get our skin so white!
We return to camp about 2 and a half hours later, to a cold drink and hot showers. The shower cubicles are also perched on the top of the hill, so the view over the top of the door whilst showering was pretty special! After that we managed to laze around a little until Tea time. Dinner again was so yum - great fish (apparently), fried eggplant and veges. We've just finally realized why the Veges are so amazing, as the girls saw him cook them in the biggest lump of pure butter!
I was on wash up duty tonight, but it was quite relaxing as we were not in a rush to pack everything away, and myself, Bob and Jakob were having a great conversation about lots of topics, from our favourite movies, to awkward tour stories and gay rights. Uganda just passed a law 2 days ago that any men found in the act, or to be gay, will be inprisoned for life. Pretty intense for it to be so illegal. Lesbianism is seen to be okay though, as the woman are "just having fun"!!
We retreated to bed by 8:30, and fell fast asleep.
Day 6 - Thursday 26th June
We managed to get a wonderful 10 hour sleep last night, and an awesome pancake breakfast at a reasonable hour of 8am. This morning was spent relaxing and chatting, and we even had another nap. I'm classifying it as our weekend!
At 2pm today we head out to Kibale Forest National Park, which was about half an hours drive from camp. Kibale NP has 12 different species of primates and the best spot in Africa to get a glimpse of the Chimps in the wild.
We are split into groups of 6, and all head in separate directions, tracking the community of 140 habitual Chimpanzees. Our guide is Jessika, a pretty, young woman (fairly sure she had a weave) who has been tracking Chimps and other primates for 8 years. She is shorter than me, around 5'3, decked out in olive green ranger attire, and carries an AK47 over her right shoulder. She explains the gun is to warn off the Forest Elephants, as they can become quite aggressive. Jessika mentions she has to fire it at least 3 times a month, from Elephants that come too close to the tourists.
We 'take a right' off the track and head into the Forest (although we would describe it as the Otways meets jungle), and walk in about 1km deep, searching in the main trees, where they normally hang and eat food. We stick to a worn path, just dodging a few tree roots and spikey leaves, but at a fairly leisurely pace. The Forest is quite cool, so the walk was not too strenuous.
All of the rangers alert each other to their chimp findings, and Jessika receives notice that the other group (that went left of the track) had found 4 males. Jessika tells us to hurry and we start to hightail it back over the initial track and into the left side. She would stop and listen to hear for Chimp calls, or nearby crunching and cracking of wood in the forest. About 500m in, we spot 3 moving black chimps, and we start racing to chase them. We manage to get right behind them, and follow them all single file (3 male chimps, Jessica, me, jade, followed by Paul, Sarah, Alex and Tamara) through the Forest and completely off the path. They set a cracking pace and we are rushing to keep up, our arms scratching against the leaves, tripping on tree roots and Jade getting strangled by vines and stung by stinging nettle. We cross back over the track again and eventually make it to one of their main fruit trees, where 2 climb up but one male sits and eats a fruit from the ground. We are madly snapping away, whilst gasping for our breath, but with huge smiles. As the last male climbs the tree, we all giggle at the excitement and the thrill of playing follow the leader with the chimps.
After about 5 minutes, Bob and Di's group join us, as they were yet to find them. As they take their photos of them up in the trees, we take group photos and look through our own snaps. Suddenly all the chimps make a hugely loud call "oohh oohh ahh a ahh" - as loud as cracking thunder, and it signals that the president chimp is coming.
We walk a little further and eventually join up with the 3rd group, and manage to find the president chimp (alpha male of all 140 chimps) just sitting and contemplating life. Here we managed to get some amazing photos and video, as he stayed still for quite a while. Most of the chimps come together, including 2 baby ones, and we continue to follow them slowly as they eat, climb trees and snap branches. After 2.5 exciting hours, the guides called it a day.
We made our way leisurely out of the Forest, and once we were back on the path, Jessika taught us a few facts about the chimps, and their behaviors, and it's crazy just how similar they are to us, or we are to them. Back on the truck and we drop the guides back to their office, and when we pulled away, the rangers high fived each other - they were obviously as chuffed as us with our luck!
We make it back to camp, stoked with our day, and Tracey comes running to meet us in the driveway to tell us her days exciting news (she trekked the day before). A local Ugandan lady named Joy, came to camp to sell her curios (jewellery, bags, souvenirs etc) to us, and it turns out, Joy knows Tracey's friend who had visited Kibale 4 years ago. She was over the moon! We didn't have the heart to bring her down with our news, as her group only managed to find the chimps in the trees, and could not see much. We went and visited Joy, and purchased some post cards and presents for back home.
So back on day 1, I offered to be the 'kitty b****' - and help Jakob our Tour Leader reconcile the receipts every few days, as a lot of our camping and park fees are paid locally, and he needs to report back to Intrepid Travel. It was really interesting, especially in my position as a TM, to understand how the local kitty works, and see the breakdown per person.
After this we prepped for dinner - minestrone soup for entree and a main of rice and veges, plus kidney beans in coconut milk, and we were pretty starving after our trek! Managed to grab a hot shower before retreating to bed and backing up our photos from today on the iPad.
10/10 Day :)
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