Sleepy faces. Slow movements. Few words. A common scene from an early morning. A nice breakfast put us all back on our feet, ready for chimp tracking.
For the tracking, we had to go into the thick forest, moving slowly and staying together in a group. This is necessary in order to not be considered a threat by the chimpanzees; scattering around would give them a feeling of being surrounded, frightening them.
It took us a good hour (or so) before we could see a chimp. Until then we could hear them calling each other (chimps have a sort of language; there are up to 30-40 sounds used for indicating different actions, i.e. food, anger, danger…).
The first one, was a rather sleepy one; he stayed most of the time laid down on a large branch and chilling under the sunlight, turning around at times.
After another good half an hour of walking, staying still and moving again, 2 chimpanzees came down to the ground. Very quick and, most of the time, almost completely hidden by the vegetation, they were some meters away from us; at this point, we were all excited, trying to take as many (good) pictures as possible before missing the chance. After few minutes of chase, they felt like getting back up on the trees and leaving us behind. One of them, before disappearing through the leaves, turned back to us just to take a good look of the group.
It was time to get back to our cars and happily head back to Kampala.
Here we are, at the end of the journey through the Murchison Falls National park, in Uganda. We’ve seen a large variety of animals and locations so emotional that will hardly be forgotten.
For me, it has been more than just a way to just see new animals; seeing their habitat and their behaviour, just made me realize once more how closely connected we all are. Just like humans, you can find the curious ones, the lazy kind, the ones that feel playful and so on.
We are all connected, we just need to realize it.
/Nesh
Related articles
- Murchison Falls – On top of the falls! (lulone.wordpress.com)
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