A day with Chimps...

We had one hell of a storm last night… it made mid-west and East Coast thunder storms look like baby storms!  Not much sleep for us last night… hard to sleep when extremely loud long thunder is roaring overhead and lightning strikes rattle your room!  Early wakeup call at 4:30 (not that we needed to be woken up), but they brought us coffee!!!  So, I say “they”, our coffee was delivered by lodge staff and a security escort with a large gun!  Gulp… that makes us nervous as the only wild animals we have seen here are cute little monkeys.  Guns were definitely not to protect us from animals!

We had a 1 ½ hour drive to the rain forest where we would meet our guides for our full day Chimp Habituation Experience.  It was a Disneyland “E ticket” ride all the way!  The roads were a complete mess due to all the rain.  We were slipping and sliding all over the road, luckily Davis is a very good driver!

Shoes before the day:

 

Finally arrived at the start point for our Chimp experience… it is a muddy mess outside… yikes!  Need to prepare defense for Fire Ants: Pants tucked into our socks, Knee-high gaiters on and we are ready to go!  We found the Chimps immediately as they were waking up and starting their day.  We quickly discovered that that Chimps do not like to come down from their nests in the trees if the ground is wet.  There was a bit of activity in the trees in the early morning, dropping food from the trees and peeing… it was definitely not rain falling! They settled in for a little rest in their nests high in the trees… Chimp trekking is a lot like watching paint dry…. After a huge storm like the one we had the night before, the Chimps take their time coming out of the trees!  So we sat and waited… and waited.  When a chimp comes down we move and I mean REALLY move!  These guys are fast!

 

Even though we were fully prepared for the elements… the damn Fire Ants got us… they climbed up the outside of our clothes and managed to find a way in… apparently they liked me and Kim the best.  (Insect repellent does nothing against these monsters)

Followed Alpha male and the strongest chimp in the group who is not the alpha male.  They were traveling together and moving fast, which meant so were we!  What a hoot!

 

We learned that when Chimps do not feel well and have worms that eat a particular type of leaf, which is called Sandpaper leaves in English.  Apparently they eat the leaves and the worms stick to them and then they poop them out… go figure.

Pretty much what we looked like all day...

 

shoes at the end of the day...

 

Here is a good safety moment for us…

 On our drive back to our lodge we go to see Red tailed monkeys and baboons.

Casualty Report:

·       Kim’s phone is a dead goner!... Now we have no phones!