Friday, August 6, 2010

Friday August 6, 2010. Back on the mainland, Kampala traffic jams, and on to Ziwa

Friday August 6, 2010. Back on the mainland, Kampala traffic jams, and on to Ziwa

Up at 6:00 when the chimps wake up/ There is no sleeping when they decide its time for breakfast. The caretakers are up early for their daily meeting, and then prepare a porridge for the chimps for breakfast. It turns out that all they have all come in overnight, which is great news because it means we can go out for a walk in the forest with the young ones. If any of the adults stayed out in the forest it wouldn’t be safe. So all the chimps get their breakfast – they put their hands through the bars to take their bowls of porridge, and then drink it through the bars, and then they hand back their empty bowls to the caretakers or carefully put the bowls on the ground. At least most of them do – a few just throw them down on the ground but most have better manners.

We dress up in green coveralls and rubber boots to look like the caretakers, shed all our jewellery and cameras and anything else that might catch the chimps’ attention (they will take and break pretty much anything from us) and go out with Stan, the head caretaker, Richard, and Bruce to wait in the forest for the group of young chimps to come out and play. Sarah is both wound up and excited and frightened, but with three caretakers we should be fine. The chimps come out and they want piggy backs. Up they climb onto Elizabeth and I – Sarah hides behind Stan when one wants to climb up on her, and off we march into the forest with two chimps on our backs and their buddies following along. These are not light weight chimps! They hand on our backs, arms around our shoulders and legs in our arms – just like a child getting a piggyback. Only hooting and making chimp noises as we go. After a few minutes we come to a clearing in the forest and we sit down, and the chimps sit with us. One grooms my hair, I groom its hair, they check all our pockets for peanuts (which Stan gives us to give to them) and for anything else of interest we might be carrying. They are incredibly muscular, which isn’t surprising given their incredible strength. They check out our hands, we check theirs, and their toes, and Stan plays tickle with one of them – a favourite chimpanzee game. Two chimps have a small battle in the midst of us, with much screeching and tooth baring, which worries Sarah a bit, but they settle back down to be friends again. After a good long time up we get and make our way back to the fence, the chimps keeping us company as we go. A young make named Rambo starts to play up a bit and picks us a stick to wave around in the air, but the caretakers take that away from him in a hurry and tell him to behave. And then we pop back through the fence, and the chimps rejoin their buddies for another day in the forest. What an amazing experience for us. The only regret is no pictures, but the chance of a camera lasting more than a few instants is about nil, so the pictures will have to be in our heads.

After the chimps are fed and and send out for the day, and the cages are cleaned, its time for our breakfast. Tea and mandazi – a kind of fried bread dough with some similarities to a doughnut. And we are hungry after our big chimp adventure. For the rest of the morning we hang out watching the chimps in the forest and looking at birds, we watch the 11:00 feeding, and then at noon we load onto a speedboat with a group of tourists for the trip back to Entebbe. It has all worked out so well – last night they weren’t sure if the chimps would come in overnight, putting our forest walk in peril, and there didn’t appear to be any spaces in the boat going back, but it all worked out perfectly! The speedboat trip back in only about 45 minutes so we are back on land in no time at all, again on pretty flat seas. What a great adventure.

Next step is back to Kampala to say hello to a few people before heading up north. The drive is perfect until we get just to the outer Kampala roundabout where I get off slightly too soon and we end up in a classic jam – about half and hour of complete standstill. So close! Elizabeth has gotten the gps working and to my amazement it has a good map of Kampala and shows us the correction on my route, and eventually the traffic moves and we are back in business again and at the university by about 3:00. It’s a bit of a rush job through, but we manage to see Betty and Herbert, who Sarah is shy with after talking about seeing him endlessly, and Juvenal comes with us to one of the on campus canteens where we order chicken and chips, and chapatti and chips, for the road. The power is off so they are cooking on charcoal – food never ever comes in a hurry, there is always something wrong, but eventually it comes and we say our good byes and enter the Bombo road heading north. And, miraculously, there is minimal traffic leaving Kampala (Friday afternoon jams are famous here as well) and we move out of the city quite smartly, cross the northern bypass highway, and pass out of town into the countryside heading north. The road is paved, and good, and there is very little traffic, and it’s great driving. The countryside is green and picturesque, with rolling hills in the background. About 6:00 we arrive at Ziwa ranch, our stop for the night. Signposted and everything. We travel about 15 minutes off the tar road down and come to the entry gates, sign in and then another 15 minutes or so come to the campground, and the reception. Ziwa is the location of 7 white rhinos, imported from Kenya and from Disney in the US – the rhino is Uganda apart from 2 at UWEC. The population of both northern white and black rhino were extirpated during the Amin years and subsequent political instability. These are not the northern white (of which there are virtually none left) so there is some debate as to the appropriateness of restocking this way. But it may well be these white rhinos or no white rhinos. The ranch is run by a South African family. One of the sons, Chris, greets us on arrival and seems quite taken with us when I respond to his comment about a BBQ that night, that a braii would be great. Apparently the word BBQ sticks in his teeth. So he shows us to a lovely grassy meadow with a rhino proof fence around it, where we are the only campers. The water pumps are rather failing so our hot shower turns into a cold drizzle, but eventually we are clean, we help Chris and his sister bottle feed some baby antelope, and we join a group by the fire waiting for our dinner. They have a Siamese cat and a german shepard puppy that join us, so Sarah is in her element wanting to take the puppy on a walk with a leash. I t is more interested in chewing on her shoes and her fingers. Off in the darkness the flashlights of the rhino guards are visible as they and their charges wander about in the bush just around the homestead. We have a good chat with Angie, who manages the place, have an excellent feed, and are walked back to the campsite by a guard with a lantern, where they have set a lovely big campfire to await our return. The stars are absolutely brilliant, the field is full of fireflies, and it’s a wonderful end to a truly amazing day.

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