Kibale National Park

This weekend Jenna and I took our first big trip away from Kasese to Kibale National Park to do chimpanzee tracking.  We got ourselves all the way from Kasese to Kibale by taxi.  The 1^st leg of our journey was a very smushed and bouncy ride to Fort Portal, about a two hour trip.  Fort Portal is the nearest bigger city to Kasese.  Once we arrived in Fort Portal Jenna and I found another taxi to Kibale.  At just before two Jenna and I reached our destination.  We were both worried that we would be too late for chimp tracking because our journey had taken a longer than expected and we left later in the day than we wanted to.  Luckily we had arrived just in time to go out with the last group of the day.

The Kibale National Forest is a tropical rainforest that is home to 13 different types of primates, we only saw three on our trek.  We left the visitors center with a guide who is trained in tracking and listening to different primate calls to identify where different groups are.  As we entered the forest we saw a group of these monkeys, (sadly I don’t remember what they are but they look very familiar…). 

Elephant tracks!

While we were walking we found elephant tracks!  Kibale is connected to Queen Victoria National Park and sometimes elephants will come from QVNP to Kibale.  Additionally our guide told us that smaller forest elephants live primarily in Kibale.  We didn’t get to see any elephants, but it was VERY cool to see their tracks.  We also found their poop in which we found the seed of a plant called elephant beer. After elephants eat this plant it ferments in their stomach and they get drunk.  The seed cannot germinate until its been through the elephants digestive track. Elephants enjoy this fruit very much and sometimes try and shake it out of trees.

More elephant tracks!

One of the butterflies I befriended.

The trip to the National Park was semi-traumatic for me because in Uganda it is currently transitioning into butterfly season.  There are over 360 different species at the park.  At one point our guide asked us to stop walking and listen and it sounded like rain.  The sound was thousands of caterpillars eating the leaves on the pants.  I've decided that I will try and make friends with the butterflies.  (I still don’t like them near my face).

After walking around in one area a bit we moved to a different section of the park because our guide wasn’t hearing any primate calls.   Once in our new section he heard something we continued on and found some other groups out with guides watching a male chimpanzee!  He was enjoying a snack in a tree!  After he had eaten a few of the fruit he climbed down off the tree and set off on the ground. 

A while later we found him again with a group of two females who were also snacking in the a new tree.  We watched them snack for a while and then once they were done they groomed each other quickly, climbed down off the tree and scampered off.  It was an amazing experience seeing chimpanzees in the wild.  Their grace climbing from tree to tree and down from the tree was very awe-inspiring.  

After about three hours in the park we started our trip back to Kasese.  We were a little worried because it was starting to get later in the day and we wanted to be on our way to Kasese before dark.  We met some Makarere University students who helped us flag down a taxi to Fort Portal.  This taxi had leather seats AND air-conditioning.  It was fantastic.  Once we arrived back to Fort Portal Jenna and I befriended two young entrepreneurs who were making rolexes (chapatti, egg, onion, cabbage, and tomato).  We decided to try them and we loved them, a lot of cooking oil, but delicious.  While munching on our dinner we headed off to the taxi park and were able to get a taxi-van headed to Kasese.  We even got to sit in the front seat, so we were much less squished than usual.  All around it was a great day and I feel much more confidant in my ability to travel independently without getting charged too much because we are muzungus.  

On our way out of the park we saw a chimpanzee!  He wanted to say buchayi!