What a difference a day makes…. No storm last night. Beautiful sunny day – lots of butterflies flying around, we can hear
birds today and the sun rays are coming down through the forest trees. Unbelievably beautiful!
Today our guide was Silver and in our opinion the best Chimp
guide ever! Not only is he a Chimp
expert, he is also a butterfly expert.
We had a wonder walk through the forest looking for the Chimps. Silver carefully explained Chimp behavior to
us, we learned that when a female is in heat she will mate with several (like
20) males (one after the other), this way none of the males will know who the
father is and they will all protect the baby like it is their own. Once the baby is born, the males will sniff
the “private” areas of the baby and test the DNA. If it smells like the “family” then the baby
is safe, if it doesn’t then the baby is brutally killed and then eaten by the
males and the mother. OMG!
Once we found the Chimps we waited for them to come down
from their nests in the trees. While we
waited we talked with Silver about several different things including HIV,
which is one of Uganda biggest health problems.
Silver told us men should only sleep with one women… and then went on to
tell us that we should sleep with only one man. :^)
After a short
time, the Chimps decided to come down from the trees, first down was the Alpha
male and second in command. Once down
from the trees they sat right in front of us and groomed each other. Shortly after a third male joined them. Then one by one they all laid down and took a
nap… 6 feet away from us! A fourth male
came down and waited to be invited over to join the others, he sat by himself
looking so very sad.
So, I have
already mentioned that we have a great driver, but Davis is truly the
best. Cheryl and I both think he is the
best driver/guide we have had in Africa.
He is very knowledgeable, willing to help, very cautious and an
all-around nice guy. Today he dried our
laundry for us while we were doing our Chimp trek, our last lodge was doing the
laundry for us, but there was some kind of issue (we think they forgot) and
ended up returning our laundry very wet the night before we were leaving. (which meant we packed our wet clothes in a
garbage bag). We also learned today,
that two other drivers crashed yesterday on their way to the Chimp Habituation…
the roads were really bad… Davis got us there safely!
We had a wonderful drive from Kibale to Queen Elizabeth
National Park. Davis took a short cut
taking us through beautiful hills and villages.
Uganda is an incredibly beautiful country! As we drove through the villages, kids ran
toward the vehicle waving at us hoping that we had treats for them, it broke
our hearts. (sure wish we would have
brought things from home for the kids).
The main form of transportation in Uganda is motorcycles and
they have a ton of them. At times you
see five people riding on one motorcycle, Davis explained that these guys are
taxi’s taking people from local villages from place to place. They are called ‘border
border’.
You also see people hauling extremely large loads on
bicycles, like this guy carrying bananas.
They buy the bananas from the farmers for $2, then turn take them to the
collection centers and sell them for $5.
Then the bananas are sold a couple more times before they end up in the
bigger cities. By the time they arrive
at the stores the cost is up to $15.
They people that work the hardest get the least amount of profit.
We stopped in a city along the way to get gas have a
bathroom break… Oh lord… what a bathroom it was. Yikes we had to go in there. Deep breath… run in… held our breath as long
as we could. Whew that was rough!
Later in the afternoon we arrived at Queen Elizabeth
National Park.
Great game drive this afternoon. We saw the Uganda National
Animal, the Kob, which is of the antelope family. They have beautiful markings.
We saw a couple of very muddy male water buffalo. Water
buffalo live in a herd, but when the males get to be too big they are forced
out of the herd and usually form small bachelor herds of about 5, for
protection and hunting.
As the day was fading into a beautiful sunset, we were
waiting for some lions that were known to be in the area. As Mother Nature
works on her own timeline, we could not just say “cue the lions”. It was
getting late and we still had to get to our lodge, so we left. Just as we were
about half way out of the park, we got a radio call the the lions were out in
the open. So off we went, flying down this dirt road… and we found two male
lions just waking up from their nap. We
watched as long as we could, but “time was not our friend” and we needed to get
to our lodge to check in… We have never checked into a lodge so late, but we
were having a great game drive
After the lions we headed to our lodge… what a great game
drive… but it wasn’t over! We ran into a
herd of Elephants on our way back. They
were standing on the road and we couldn’t pass until they moved. Davis used the elephants as the excuse for
our late arrival, but in reality it was probably the lions. When we arrived at the gate to the lodge
Davis told the person it was the elephants… and gave the guy some money. Later he told us that they want the drivers
off the roads by seven for safety. Too
many animals out.
Another safety moment... guides looking for lions!
Great quotes from today:
- There is no resting in Uganda – Kim
- Time is not our friend – Davis
- We are late because the Elephants were blocking the road - Davis
Fun fact
- Chimp babies are named after their mother… their name starts with the first letter of their mother’s name.
- Uganda has more women leaders than men because women are trusted and men are corrupt
- In the small villages, women work and the men stay home and drink
Casualty Report
- Kim tripped on a vine on Chimp trek this morning, she went down gracefully
- Cheryl fell on a quick stop on game drive – landed on Gina’s camera and took a picture
- Another short stop, and Gina was almost knocked out of the vehicle – the roads are very rough
- Davis drove over a decorative vase in parking lot before game drive
- Lost safari vehicle pillows (used to stabilize cameras) on game drive (going back to see lions)
Never boring!
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