This is the fifth in a series of nine posts covering our 13-day tour around Uganda with Mountain Gorilla Coffee Tours (“MGCT”).
After we left Murchison Falls National Park, we drove to the town of Fort Portal, where we spent the night before embarking on one of the highlights of our time in Uganda: chimp trekking in Kibale National Park.
Kibale National Park is home to more than 1,400 chimpanzees. Hiking through the rainforest to spot some of the chimpanzees that have been habituated for human visitors1 was near the top of our list of things to do in Uganda, and we were really looking forward to the adventure.
We had been warned that we might have to hike for a good distance before we found any chimpanzees – if we found them at all.2 Nonetheless, almost immediately after entering the forest, we came across a large chimp reclining under a tree.
Our small group (composed of us, the Italians, and our guide Florence3) was the first group to spot him, but soon some of the other trekking groups were circling him as well.
After a bit, the chimp decided that he had had enough, and rose to leave. “Don’t move!” Florence advised as he stalked toward us. As he disappeared into the forest, Florence called for us to follow him. Soon we were the only group tailing him as he made his way through the foliage. He was moving fast, and he was much more adept at maneuvering through the thick vegetation than us. We scrambled after him, tripping over vines and almost falling in elephant dung in our hurry to keep him in our sights.
We managed to catch up with him when he sat down. As we quietly filed around him to get a closer look, he jumped up and, shrieking, began slapping the trunk of a nearby tree. I couldn’t help but think of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (which Marc and I had watched in Kampala) and was certain that this was a battle cry, but Florence explained he was just communicating with the other chimpanzees. Indeed, we could hear them shrieking in response all around us.
He took off again, and, once more we attempted to follow him. When he scaled a tall tree, we craned our necks to watch him run around on the branches. As we watched, another chimpanzee came to join him. Then a female chimpanzee with a small baby in tow arrived. More and more chimpanzees kept coming out of the forest around us, and climbing up into the tree with the original chimp. We just stood on the ground, staring up in amazement, as the now-large group swung about the treetops and feasted on fruit.
(The pictures only show so much, so here is a video I took of the chimps scampering around the treetops.)
Eventually, the chimpanzees descended from the tree and split up. We hung around to watch a few of them groom each other and send calls to the rest of the chimpanzees (see the amazing video Marc took of one of the chimps allegedly communicating with others – although it looks like he’s just having a laugh startling the tourists), and then moved on to watch a few others groom each other and hang out in trees.
The chimp trekking experience was incredible – everything we could have imagined and more. But, afterwards, we were tired, having gotten up early – so Robert drove us to a nearby hotel with a phenomenal view of a tea plantation for coffee.
When we finally pulled ourselves away from that comfortable spot, it had started to rain – but that didn’t stop us from visiting the “Top of the World,” a fantastic viewpoint with an aerial view of Kibale National Park and several crater lakes. We peered through the falling rain at the lush forest beneath us, and then raced back down the hill as the rain turned into a downpour.
Where We Stayed:
☆ Ataco Country Lodge. Three goats. Our original itinerary had us staying at Touro Resort (a dark, uninspiring collection of chalets), but the Italians’ rooms weren’t clean when we arrived. Instead, Robert went looking for alternative accommodation and found Ataco. It was a clean place (although with some strange-looking plaster animals that made me jump whenever I spotted one in the dark), and our room was completely fine. Dinner, however, was a dismal affair: it was a set menu, served an hour after they told us they would serve it, and composed of what could only have been canned food … for which they saw fit to charge us 20,000 shillings each.
1 Three groups of the chimpanzees in Kibale have been habituated for human contact. For more information on the habituation process, check out this interesting article on the Jane Goodall Institute’s website.
2 While it is indeed possible that you might not encounter any chimpanzees during a visit to Kibale, the park claims that the success rate is 90%.
3 Because of the large rifle Florence wore strapped across her back (for scaring off forest elephants, she told us), I couldn’t help but think of her as Florence and the Machine.
