These Animals are Really Wild!

November 12, 2009

Last week-end, after spending the week teaching in the small city of Jinja, I went on a 2-day tour with Larry, my trusted driver, Teach and Tour liason and organizer, and all-round supporter and assistant. I visited the largest national park in Uganda, one highly recommended by the guidebooks, the Murchison Falls National Park The view of the falls from the boat was actually a bit of a let-down; you can't really get close enough to appreciate it fully. And Larry hadn't suggested the trip to the top of the falls (and I hadn't read my guidebooks thoroughly enough to request it).where you can, apparently, really get of sense of its full majesty.

However, the wild-life that I saw on the boat ride and a driving tour through the park was spectacular, indeed. It was fun to see such a diversity of animals getting along and enjoying themselves on the land and in the river – elephants, crocodiles, hippos, birds, insects, on and on. And lots and lots of giraffes. That was my favorite part.

Originally, I wasn't going to go chimpanzee tracking at the park because it is an additional expense and I had heard that it wasn't nearly as compelling as the gorilla tracking, which I would be doing in a couple of weeks at a different park. But when I realized that we were already booked to stay the night at the lodge from which the chimpanzee tracking originates and which supports the Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Research Center, I changed my mind on the way there figuring “What the heck, I am going to be there anyway, I might as well go!” Larry, always helpful, called ahead and was able to make the arrangements and we raced along the amazingly rutted roads to get there in time for the afternoon tracking tour. (Because I hadn't originally planned to do the chimp tracking, we didn't leave Jinja as early as we would have if that had been set in the schedule from the beginning.) It wasn't clear if we would make it in time and when I spoke to the ranger I couldn't tell if they were willing to hold the departure of the tracking tour for us if we were a bit late. So, I decided to just relax on the lengthy drive. If we make it, fine. If not, so be it. Instead of stopping for lunch on the road we picked up some sticks of charcoal broiled goat meat from street vendors which was absolutely delicious. It did bother me a bit because I don't think of goats as something to eat, but it did kind of look like and taste pretty much like any other type of meat.

Well, we arrived at 2:00 pm for the afternoon departure which they told us was scheduled for 1:00 pm and it turns out we were the only guests at this 32-bed facility and the only people on the afternoon tracking trip! This is the slow season for tourists (partly because it is not July-August and partly because it is during the secondary rainy season), but this seemed pretty slow to me. The facility that we stayed at was very new and attractive, reasonably priced and solar powered. And built with the assistance of USAID money. It was nice to see my tax money going for a good purpose, but I was puzzled about why the facility was so empty when the privately owned facilities near the boat launch in the part appeared much less attractive and were very busy. Is this the effects of capitalistic enterprisingness, or something else?

Because I hadn't originally planned on going tracking, I didn't bring my rain jacket and pants. Even though my whole visit to Uganda has technically been during the rainy season, I haven't actually had a lot of problems with the rain. It seems like it rains about every other day or less in Kampala now and when it does rain it doesn't seem to last too terribly long or be extremely unpleasant. Because the temperature is generally warm you don't really get chilled even if you are caught in the rain. So, I asked the guide if he thought it would rain while we went tracking (we would be tracking for a maximum of three hours) and from my other experience I thought we might miss the rain. But he said with certainty “yes.” Since I didn't have rain gear, I decided to bring my umbrella with me for the tracking. Sure enough, after we had been walking for 10 minutes suddenly, as if on cue, it started to rain. I got out my umbrella and Larry and I used it together for about 10 minutes before we were in the denser part of the forest and it became completely useless.

The chimps live in “families” of 6-10 chimps and 10 -15 families comprise a “community.” There are several communities in the Budongo forest and they move continually through the forest, each day building a nest for cover that night. In this forest visitors have a roughly 90% chance of observing chimps; there are two people who work for the park who follow the chimps continuously and call the ranger to tell them where they are so that he can bring the guests to them. I was pleased with the effectiveness and efficiency of the system. Our guide also seemed both knowledgeable and deeply committed to his work and the well-being of the animals and the forest. There is a lot of concern that humans don't transmit diseases to the chimps (and vice versa) so were asked to turn away from the chimps if we needed to sneeze.

At first the chimps were very hard for me to see. They hang out on the top of the tall trees and their dark fur does not provide a sharp contrast with their surroundings. They are very accepting of humans watching them; they continue doing their thing (mostly eating, sometimes grooming, lots of oral communication with other chimps and, as we were lucky enough to observe for ourselves, occasionally copulating). They really did seem a lot more social than the other animals we observed, and it was easy to believe that they share 98% of their DNA with humans. I guess what stood out for me in the whole chimp tracking expedition and, to a lesser extent the other wildlife gazing, was how different it is to go to their environment to visit rather than to see them at a zoo or farm which doesn't really seem like visiting them in their home in the same way. There were no gates or fences here; just us and them co-existing in a nearby space. I was glad, after all, that I had decided to come and grateful to the people who work hard to help preserve these areas where they can safely live.