A Ugandan man at Chimp’s Nest stopped me and asked me if I was going chimp tracking. I said hopefully, and he offered me a lift. His name was Charles, and he was tour guiding for two Italian women, one of whom lived in Kampala with her husband and the other of whom spoke no English.
Apparently, he got in trouble because he should have had me ask them. On one hand I understood: they hired him, and I wasn’t a part of that. On the other hand, the two of them were in a van and it was a 15 minute drive, but would have been an hour and a half walk. Through two tribes of baboons. I was lucky, and was able to go with them anyway.
At Kibale there were 24 people already signed up. I wasn’t signed up, and the maximum for a group is supposed to be 18. And the guy in charge was not in a good mood and seemed disinclined to further break the rules. Charles talked to him and a couple of the other rangers though, and got me a space in the group with a Swiss couple and their three kids. Then the head guy had a hissy fit about me not having closed toe shoes, so I had to hire some sneakers for Ush3000. I was worried about my proclivity for slipping and falling, but that ended up not being a problem—I only had to worry about fungal transfer to my sockless feet*.
Chimp babies are just like human babies: they are fascinated by new people, they like to play hide and seek, and they try to pee on you. Only chimp babies do it from a greater height. That is what I learned. We also watched the first baby we saw go back to her mama, and then reluctantly submit to cuddles for a bit so mama would play the swinging game.
Later, when we were trying to track one of the the adult males, we happened upon a subadult male, just chillaxing in the grass. I took a bunch of pictures, in all of which he looks dead—unless you compare them to each other and realize he’s moving.
Also, pictures of him yawning look threatening because chimps have massive chompers. At first he would just occasionally glance up, and the look on his face was so, “This isn’t interesting. Are you done yet?” Eventually, I guess he realized we weren’t done yet. He put one arm back and rested one foot on his opposite knee, as if to say, “Fine, then. Where’s my newspaper?”
I was worried about not being able to keep up, especially when I had to trade all my shoe traction for closed-toeness, but it was pretty easy. There aren’t many hills, and those that there are aren’t that steep or that long. Balance, I think, was a bigger issue. Areas of the forest floor were entirely covered in leaf mould, and I was surprised the borrowed sneakers didn’t cause more of a problem. Everyone slipped at least once. But it wasn’t too bad because no-one, not even me, fell. Which is good—I felt I had enough Ugandan souvenirs in my banged up knee, finger, and and knuckles from rafting the Nile in Jinja, and didn’t feel I needed any more.
Of course, it would have been useful to have better equipment: trail runners that fit, or at least remembering socks to wear up over my pants in case of ants—although again luckily, those weren’t a problem. It was good I picked Kibale though. I think at Queen Elizabeth NP I would have had serious problems without proper shoes.
*Ok, I’ve had better ideas than my footgear here. I mean, I didn’t have closed toe shoes because I didn’t have closed toe shoes, but not even socks? That’s ridiculous.
