Chimpanzee Day!

Day 6 Chimpanzee Day!!!
We were all very excited to get the opportunity to have a day off & go see chimpanzees. We ate breakfast early & then loaded a bus that took us down to the beach. There are 24 of us on this trip plus 2 guides so our bus is always full! Once we got to the beach we loaded into 2 boats. All the people that get motion sick were on a Fiberglass speed boat & all the rest were on a wooden boat. It was about an hour & a half boat ride on Lake Taganyika to the Gombe Forest lodge where we would start our trek. The water is absolutely beautiful in the lake. It looks like ocean water, very clear and vey blue. Luckily no one in the sick boat actually got sick so once we docked we were all ready to go. We split up into 4 groups: 2 fast groups, 1 medium group, and one leisure group. I went with the medium group & there were 8 of us. We started hiking into Gombe National Park. This is the park where Jane Goodall studies the chimpanzees. It's a very beautiful place but the paths are pretty steep & a little hard to walk. I wasn't expecting to climb so high and our guide apparently thought we were a fast group so we kept having to tell him to slow down. A few minutes into the park we had to stop, take a step back & line up because a chimp was coming our way. He literally walked right in front of us..so close I could reach out & touch him. He didn't pay any attention to us whatsoever! After he passed we went on. We climbed further and further & I got really hot. I had worn a long sleeve shirt & a hat to keep the branches from scratching me but I had to stop & remove them. I freaked out a little because it was also hard to breath but after a quick rest & some water I got back up & kept going. I'm glad I did because just ahead there were a couple of chimps playing in the trees! After a few minutes of observing them they hurried down a tree & were out of sight. We then started down but the incline we were on was very steep & pretty narrow so it was difficult to navigate. We had to go single file and when it was my turn I stepped on a piece of dirt that everyone else had stepped on but it was no longer stable and I went sliding down the incline. I had to reach out & grab a vine to stop myself & then pull myself up w/ both hands & the help of our guide. It was a little scary but thankfully I put in a lot of hours watching Lost so I knew what to do! Unfortunately there was no Jack or Sawyer to pull me up though. After that little incident we moved on & then had to climb backwards down a small incline holding on to a vine so that we wouldn't fall. I thought I was just going to be walking along an easy path but oh no! It was a little intense. After we made it down we were on our way to the waterfall when the first half of our group walked through a hill of army ants that sting. Luckily I was at the back of the pack! Our guide took us a different route but we had to walk through a stream. Luckily I had my Drainmakers on so the water was no big deal for me. Plus I'd rather be wet than get bit! After the first half of our group got all the ants out of their pants (not trying to be funny but they almost had to take them off to get them out!) we moved on. We walked through a section where our guide said the Black Mamba snakes live so we picked up the pace & luckily didn't see any. After that we finally made it to the waterfall which was beautiful! All the groups ended up meeting there and several people got under it to cool off. After a small rest we split up into a couple groups. The first group was hiking to the top peak to overlook the park & the rest of us were heading back to camp. We were extremely hot & sweaty so I opted to go back to camp. There were a lot of us that decided to do that so we ended up splitting up into 2 groups. I was in the 2nd group & on our way back we came across a troop of baboons!! There were about 10-15 of them and we pretty much just sat down on the path & watched them play all around us. There were a few babies & one was only a week old. They all let us take their picture & just kept running all around us! We sat there for about 45 minutes or so. When we finally got back to camp we met a girl from the Universfity of Minnesota who was there working on her PHD studying the baboons. She knows them all by name! I have no idea how she can even tell them apart! When we were finally finished we got back on the boat to head to the lodge where they served us lunch. We had yellow belly fish which was excellent & then loaded up the boats & returned to our hotel for the night. The day was tiring but it was so worth it to be able to experience everything.