MONKEYS!!!!!

As my handle infers, I LOVE Monkeys! So I've been lucky enough to be given the chance to report to you on our third day of Safari, Chimpanzee Tracking.
We starting with another early morning call at 6am, inhaled a quick breakfast, chugged our boiling tea/coffee and ran down to catch our ride to the 7am Ferry crossing back over the Nile. Thank goodness that 'Africa' time allows for a 5-10 minute buffer for all events, because due to issues the hotel was having in the morning providing us with our boxed lunches, we are running late and cutting it close!
We RACED along the bumpy road to Kaniyo Pabidi in the Budongo Forest, the wild Chimpanzee Sanctuary started by Jane Goodall. This is different from Ngamba Island (also a Jane Goodall Institute Sanctuary) because in the Budongo Forest there are no cages, no fences and no barriers between you and these amazing creatures.
Because we were going off into the woods and the red ants can be very bitey, we all had to wear tall socks, with our pants tucked into them (therefore keeping the socks fully exposed the entire time). I had brought two pairs with me on our trip. Chuck ended up borrowing my lovely striped pair. Mike and MK had to purchase socks there at the base camp, unfortunately, the only socks they sold were covered in butterflies, and birds and various other woodland creatures in lovely pinks and teals and yellows. To protect the innocent, those pictures have not been posted to this blog, however if you ask nice, I can show you when we get home!
Our guide Eva led the four of us into the forest, Mama Conche stayed back at the base cabin and made friends with the staff and other visitors (she had planned to continue reading her book, Freakanomics, but was far too social to even read one word of it). As we began our walk, Eva told us that it is not just the guides responsibility to track the chimps, but ours as well. We were to look at the ground for scraps of figs that the Chimps had just eaten, or for knuckle prints from them running through the woods. We were also told to smell the air for a very pungent scent the Chimps give off, and to listen for the sounds they make, ranging from their very deep grunts to the high pitched screams, and the swayed of the branches at they moved from tree to tree. We were all certain we kept hearing the chimps, but it turned out each time that they were just birds, or the black and white colobus monkey. Eva assured us that when we actually heard the Chimps, we would know, and how right she was... the sound was almost deafening! I cannot even begin to describe to you the sheer volume that these mammals put out, but whatever you are imagining, multiply it by ten, and that is what we experienced.
We continued to follow the noises they made until we spotted our first Chimp. She was alone, but quickly jumped down from her perch and led us to the direction of the others (she was pretty slick however, and ditched us at a turn). We continued through the woods (rarely staying on the few paths than run through) until we found the group. There are numerous groups that make up the community of Chimpanzees in this section of the Budongo forest, each having between 6 and 15 chimps per group. The group we came across have about 13 or so. To our luck, they were so loud because they had just trapped and killed a colobus and they were fighting over it. The colobus monkey is the ONLY one that they will eat, and they were certainly excited about this one. The alpha male of the group had taken the meat high up into the tree, and the remainder of the chimps hung around in the surrounding trees, waiting to get their share. One particularly entertaining chimp decided just to lounge back and watch this all take place, completely unconcerned with the possibility of getting a share for himself. Our guide was great, she took us directly underneath where the chimps were eating and fighting over the meat. A few minutes later, we hear crashes noises and whoops and screams coming from another part of the forest. As the Chimps dropped to the ground you hear a loud thumping noise, sounding like the beating of a drum. Another group of chimps had heard that the group we were watching had meat, and was coming in to get a piece of the action, and there we were, standing right in the middle of the excitement. A few seconds later, the meat fell to the ground, and about 10 chimps bounded from the trees, to the ground to go after it, and ran off! It was unbelieveable, to be right there, in the midst of it all with them. And how gracious they were to let us be a part of their environment. They are absolutely amazing. We wandered around for a few more minutes, tracked a couple other chimps/groups, and then headed back to meet up with Mama Conche, who had thoroughly enjoyed herself perhaps as much as we did!
Back on the road again, we headed to the town of Misindi, ate our questionable boxed lunches, and returned to Kampala for the evening, where Mama Maria was already at the house, cooking her famous chicken dinner for us and several other members of the family who came by to see how our adventure had gone. What a great way to wrap up an incredible adventure!